Hyainailourinae ("

hyena Hyenas or hyaenas ( ; from Ancient Greek , ) are feliform carnivoran mammals belonging to the family Hyaenidae (). With just four extant species (each in its own genus), it is the fifth-smallest family in the order Carnivora and one of the sma ...

-like

cats The cat (''Felis catus''), also referred to as the domestic cat or house cat, is a small domesticated carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species of the family Felidae. Advances in archaeology and genetics have shown that the ...

") is a

paraphyletic Paraphyly is a taxonomic term describing a grouping that consists of the grouping's last common ancestor and some but not all of its descendant lineages. The grouping is said to be paraphyletic ''with respect to'' the excluded subgroups. In co ...

subfamily of

hyaenodonts Hyaenodontidae ("hyena teeth") is a family of placental mammals in the extinct superfamily Hyaenodontoidea. Hyaenodontids arose during the early Eocene and persisted well into the early Miocene. Fossils of this group have been found in Asia, Nor ...

from extinct paraphyletic family

Hyainailouridae Hyainailouridae ("hyena-like Felidae, cats") is a Paraphyly, paraphyletic family of extinct predatory mammals within the Polyphyly, polyphyletic superfamily Hyaenodonta, Hyainailouroidea within extinct order Hyaenodonta. Hyainailourids arose duri ...

. They arose during the

Middle Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', ' Dawn') a ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

, and persisted well into the

Late Miocene The Late Miocene (also known as Upper Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages. The Tortonian and Messinian stages comprise the Late Miocene sub-epoch, which lasted from 11.63 Ma (million ye ...

. Fossils of this group have been found in Africa,

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

General characteristics

Hyainailourins are characterized by long skulls, slender jaws, slim bodies, and a

plantigrade 151px, Portion of a human skeleton, showing plantigrade habit In terrestrial animals, plantigrade locomotion means walking with the toes and metatarsals flat on the ground. It is one of three forms of locomotion adopted by terrestrial mammals. ...

stance. They generally ranged in size from 30 to 140 cm at the shoulder. While some measured as much as 1.4 m high at the shoulder with head-body length up to 3.2 m and weighed up to 500 kg, most were in the 5–15 kg range, equivalent to a mid-sized

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

. The anatomy of their skulls show that they had a particularly acute sense of smell, while their teeth were adapted for shearing, rather than crushing.

Classification and phylogeny

Taxonomy

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q34463832 Hyaenodonts Cenozoic mammals of Africa Cenozoic mammals of Asia Cenozoic mammals of Europe Cenozoic mammals of North America