Pseudaelurus

Pseudaelurus
	Lower jaw of Pseudaelurus in the State Museum for Natural History Stuttgart
Temporal occurrence
	Miocene
	approx. 20 to 10 million years
Locations
	Europe; North America;
Systematics
	Higher mammals (Eutheria)
	Laurasiatheria
	Predators (Carnivora)
	Feline (Feliformia)
	Cats (Felidae)
	Pseudaelurus
Scientific name
	Pseudaelurus
	Gervais , 1850

Pseudaelurus is one of the earliest species of cats and lived around 20–8 million years ago in Europe, Asia, Africa (Saudi Arabia) and North America. He is a successor to Proailurus and is regarded as the forerunner of both the extinct saber-toothed cats and today's cats. The genus is divided into the two sub- genera Schizailurus and Pseudaelurus , which are each considered to be the ancestors of the felines and pantherines or the saber-toothed cats.

The earliest and most original species was Pseudaelurus turnauensis from the early Miocene of Europe and Africa, which reached about the size of a house cat and evidently arose directly from the Oligocene genus Proailurus . From this species other species developed in Eurasia, such as the lynx-sized species Pseudaelurus lorteti and the even larger species Pseudaelurus quadridentatus , which with a body weight of 30 kg reached the size of a puma. The latter also showed a trend towards elongated upper canines, which is why they are believed to be an ancestor of the machairodontine saber-toothed cats . Surprisingly, the earliest species Pseudaelurus turnauensis survived until 8 million years ago, where it is recorded in Germany, while the later species Pseudaelurus lorteti and Pseudaelurus quadridentatus died out about two million years earlier.

About 18.5 million years ago, the genus also reached North America, where it initially occurs through the larger species Pseudaelurus validus and the smaller species Pseudaelurus skinneri , which was only described in 2003 . The later North American forms also include larger ones, such as Pseudaelurus intrepidus and Pseudaelurus marshi , as well as the small, slender species Pseudaelurus stouti . In North America, Pseudaelurus has been found up to the Middle Miocene. Some larger forms, which were originally also ascribed to Pseudaelurus , are now assigned to Nimravides .

Web links

Commons : Pseudaelurus - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ Alan Turner: The Big Cats and their fossil relatives . Columbia University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-231-10228-3 .
↑ Jordi Augusti: Mammoths, Sabertooths and Hominids 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe , Columbia University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-231-11640-3 .
↑ Tom Rothwell: Phylogenetic Systematics of North American Pseudaelurus (Carnivora: Felidae) . American Museum Novitates. Published by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, Number 2403, pp. 1-64, May 2003. online .

[1] Alan Turner: The Big Cats and their fossil relatives . Columbia University Press, New York 1997, ISBN 0-231-10228-3 .

[2] Jordi Augusti: Mammoths, Sabertooths and Hominids 65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe , Columbia University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-231-11640-3 .

[3] Tom Rothwell: Phylogenetic Systematics of North American Pseudaelurus (Carnivora: Felidae) . American Museum Novitates. Published by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, Number 2403, pp. 1-64, May 2003. online .