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New Apex Predator Discovered

posted 3 days ago by chilidoggg (14584)
4 replies | jump to latest

"These apex predators thrived after the dinosaurs went extinct."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/skull-30-million-old-apex-050100361.html

Hyaenodonts like Bastetodon evolved long before modern cats, dogs, hyenas, and other carnivorous mammals. They boasted sharp hyena-like teeth and stalked African ecosystems hunting for primates, early hippos, early elephants, and beaver-like hyraxes in the forests southwest of modern Cairo. Now a desert, a team of paletontologists were digging through 30 million-year old rock layers called the Fayum Depression for more evidence on mammal evolution in Africa.

[–] 123Guy (7838) 3 days ago

Whoa they found a version of something that is a slightly altered version of something else??? That never happens. Stop the press!!

Sorry it's just another kind of a cat.
Why is it shocking that we don't know everything? We only live 100 years

[–] parkerbot (10679) 3 days ago

I thought this was about Kowlaski.

I'm channeling my inner Melton. Don't worry, it'll pass.

[–] KiwiJim (1762) 3 days ago

What a sister act!

🙄

[–] jriley555 (8541) 3 days ago

Interesting - a late hyaenodont specimen. Hyaenodont was a sister clade to Carnivora - this guy was no ancestor to any cat, dog, bear, or weasel - but those teeth looked very familiar.

That order was also highly diversified, distributed throughout Eurasia/Africa/North America, could have ended up in the place of carnivora, but were evid. entirely out-competed/replaced.