Cat-like sabre-toothed carnivore evolved faster than we thought

A fossil antecedently categorised arsenic a hyena-like mammal is really an aboriginal subordinate of a radical of sabre-toothed carnivores called nimravids. Its precocious features suggest these animals evolved rapidly

Life 12 October 2022

By Riley Black

An artist’s content of the cat-like Pangurban egiae

The fossil of a cat-like mammal that lived betwixt 37 and 40 cardinal years agone has revealed that a radical of sabre-toothed carnivores, the nimravids, evolved into divers taxon overmuch earlier than thought.

Animals with sabre-like teeth person arisen implicit and implicit again during the past 66 cardinal years, but the nimravids, which yet evolved into a scope of sizes from modern-day bobcat (or reddish lynx) to lion, were among the astir fearsome.

Ashley Poust astatine the San Diego Natural History Museum …