Pseudaelurus

Life image of Pseudaelurus in the Smithsonian Museum.

• Europe
• North America

Pseudaelurus is one of the earliest species of cats and lived about 20-8 million years ago in Europe, Asia, Africa (Saudi Arabia) and North America. He is a follower of Proailurus and is considered the forerunner of both the extinct saber-toothed cats and the cats today. We divided the genus into two sub-genres Schizailurus and Pseudaelurus which are all considered as ancestors of the feline and Pantherinen or the saber-toothed cats.

The earliest and most primitive type was Pseudaelurus turnauensis from the early Miocene of Europe and Africa, which reached about the size of a house cat and apparently emerged directly from the Oligocene genus Proailurus. From this type developed in Eurasia additional species such as the lynx great way Pseudaelurus lorteti and the even larger type Pseudaelurus quadridentatus, which reached the size of a puma with 30 kg body weight. The latter also showed a trend to longer upper canines, which is why they are considered an ancestor of machairodontinen saber-toothed cats. Surprisingly survived the earliest type Pseudaelurus turnauensis to 8 million years ago, where it is detected in Germany, while the developed later types Pseudaelurus lorteti and Pseudaelurus extinct earlier quadridentatus about two million years.

Prior to about 18.5 million years ago the genus and North America where it first occurs through the larger type Pseudaelurus validus and the smaller first described in 2003 Type Pseudaelurus skinneri reached. Among the later North American forms are also larger, as Pseudaelurus Intrepidus and Pseudaelurus marshi, as well as to find the small, slender type Pseudaelurus stouti. In North America Pseudaelurus is proved to the middle Miocene. Some of the larger forms, which originally also Pseudaelurus were attributed, are assigned Nimravides today.