Kanuites

• Kenya

• Kanuites lewisae Dehghani & Werdelin, 2008

Kanuites was an early genus of civet cats, which lived in Africa in the middle Miocene. She is known using only a few fossils. The only recognized species is Kanuites lewisae, which was discovered in Fort Ternan, Kenya.

Features

Fossils of Kanuites are very rare and so far only known from Fort Ternan in western Kenya. It has been found so far of the holotype ( specimen number KNM- FT 8747 ), a nearly complete skull, which only lack the cheekbones, another upper jaw fragment and isolated teeth. The skull is 15 cm long, very flat and narrow. He left contains the row of teeth from the second premolar to the first molar (P2- M1), the right of the canine to the last premolar (C- P4). In addition, all alveoli of the incisors are preserved, as well as those of the left canine and first premolar and the right first molar. The alveoli of the respective second molars are missing, the corresponding teeth but get on the second maxilla fragment. The canine is relatively simple and has built on the front and back of each one cutting surface, which is not much increased, the existing first premolar diastema is 1.5 mm long. This is built small and peg -like, the rear then much larger and the last very robust.

Paleobiology

Kanuites was about as big as today's genets and weighed less than 10 kg. Due to the structure of the molars, especially the first molar is assumed that Kanuites in his behavior was also similar to the genets, and probably how this was a rather omnivore animal, but had a greater tendency to meat diet. Whether the small predator like the genets could move in trees ( arboreal lifestyle ) is unclear due to the lack of postcranial skeletal material so far.

System

The genus was described in 2008 Kanuites scientifically for the first time. So far, only one recognized species is Kanuites lewisae. Here, the genus name comes from the Kanuites Swahili word canoe back and means " small carnivores". The species name honors lewisae Margaret E. Lewis and her contributions to the study of African predators. However, the designation Kanuites based on a naming RJG Savage and MR Long, who in 1986 first used, but it was regarded as a noun nudum. The name at that time included all residues small felids from Fort Ternan to be assigned to a total of three different types. These fossils also include remains of the fuselage skeleton and limbs and finds juvenile individuals.

Within the superfamily Feloidea only a provisional inclusion of the civets was made, which is due to the low archaeological material. For a more detailed relationship include the part to the early Miocene genus belonging Herpestides, but also Africanictis and Stenoplesictis.