''Hyainailouros'' ("

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 ...

cat 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 an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of hyaenodont belonging to the 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 ...

that lived during the Early to

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 ...

, of which there were at least three species spread across

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

and

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 ...

. Closely related to other large African hyaenodonts such as '' Simbakubwa'' and '' Megistotherium'', ''Hyainailouros'' walked with a semi-digitigrade stance and was probably capable of large, leaping bounds.

References

Hyaenodonts Miocene mammals of Europe Miocene mammals of Africa Miocene mammals of Asia Prehistoric placental genera Fossil taxa described in 1863 {{paleo-mammal-stub