Borhyaenidae

Fossil of Lycopsis longirostris in the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

• South America

The Borhyaenidae are a family of extinct marsupials. They came from the Eocene to Miocene in South America and were initially not recognized as marsupials, but kept for relatives of Creodonten. The Borhyaenidae had developed favored by the absence of placental predators convergent to the Australian Dasyuridae -like ( Dasyuromorphia ) and have a dog, bear or hyena -like appearance. Before Huayquerium (9 to 6.8 million ) they were the only medium to large predatory mammals in South America. With about two dozen genera in the Miocene they reached the peak of their diversity, died at the end of the period but from. As in the great American faunal reached the first "higher" predators South America, the Borhyaenidae had already disappeared.

Features

All Borhyaeniden had relatively short legs and a compared to placental carnivores small braincase. They were all-or predators. Smaller, about dogs large Borhyaeniden lived semiarborial (partly on trees ), the larger were exclusively bottom dwellers. Prothylacynus had a body length of 80 cm, Borhyaena reached the height of a jaguar and Proborhyaena was bigger than a grizzly bear.

Inside systematics

• Family Borhyaenidae Subfamily Hathliacyninae Allqokirus
• Paten
• Palaeocladosictis
• Procladosictis
• Pseudocladosictis
• Sallacyon
• Notogale
• Cladosictis
• Sipalocyon
• Thylacodictis
• Agustylus
• Ictioborus
• Amphithereutes
• Perathereutes
• Chasicostylus
• Notictis
• Notocynus
• Borhyaenidium

• Arminiheringia
• Paraborhyaena
• Proborhyaena

• Nemolestes
• Argyrolestes
• Angelocabrerus
• Pharsophorus
• Borhyaena
• Pseudoborhyaena
• Acrocyon
• Conodonictis
• Eutemnodus
• Parahyaenodon

• Pseudothylacinus
• Prothylacynus
• Lycopsis
• Stylocynus
• Pseudolycopsis