''Anictis'' is an extinct species of

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other ...

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

-like mammal belonging to the

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

Aeluroidea Aeluroidea is an extant Taxonomic rank, clade of cat, feline-like carnivores that are, or were, endemic to North America, South America, Africa, and Asia. They appeared during the Oligocene about . Taxonomy Aeluroidea was named by William Henry ...

, endemic to

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

(Quercy,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

) living from the

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but ...

33.9—28.4 Ma, existing for approximately . ''Anictis'' is shown to have an

omnivorous An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nut ...

diet or more precisely,

hypercarnivorous A hypercarnivore is an animal which has a diet that is more than 70% meat, either via active predation or by scavenging. The remaining non-meat diet may consist of non-animal foods such as fungi, fruits or other plant material. Some extant examp ...

to mesocarnivorous.

Taxonomy

''Anictis'' was named by Kretzoi (1945). It was assigned to Aeluroidea by Hunt (1998); and to

Viverridae Viverridae is a family of small to medium-sized, feliform mammals. The viverrids () comprise 33 species placed in 14 genera. This family was named and first described by John Edward Gray in 1821. Viverrids occur all over Africa, southern Europe ...

by Flynn (1998).R. M. Hunt. 1998. Evolution of the aeluroid Carnivora: diversity of the earliest aeluroids from Eurasia (Quercy, Hsanda-Gol) and the origin of felids. ''American Museum Novitates'' 3252:1-65 There is one known species, ''Anictis simplicidens''.

References

{{paleo-carnivora-stub Oligocene feliforms Oligocene mammals of Europe Prehistoric carnivoran genera