Viverra leakeyi
| Viverra leakeyi | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Late Miocene to Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Viverra leakeyi | ||||||||||||
| Petter , 1963 |
Viverra leakeyi was a very large species of crawling cats from the genus of the Asian civet cats thatlivedin Africa from the late Miocene to the Pleistocene .
As can be deduced from the name, Asian civets are now only native to the Asian continent . With Viverra leakeyi and related prehistoric species, however, representatives of the genus can also be found in Africa and Europe .
Fossils of the species were found on the Langebaanweg in South Africa , in the Omo Valley in Ethiopia and near Laetoli in Tanzania .
features
Viverra leakeyi is considered to be the largest civet that has ever existed. The fossils found indicate that the animal reached a shoulder height of around 50 cm and was thus significantly larger than all today's civet cats. Fossil finds from Viverra leakeyi are mostly limited to the skull area. The skull was very similar to that of today's Asian civets, but the dentition indicates that Viverra leakeyi was more adapted to a predatory way of life than the recent civets and possibly actively hunted small and medium-sized mammals .
literature
- Alan Turner, Mauricio Antón: Evolving Eden. An Illustrated Guide to the Evolution of the African Large-Mammal Fauna. Columbia University Press, New York NY 2004, ISBN 0-231-11944-5 .