Metailurini 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 ...

taxonomic tribe of large

saber-toothed cat Machairodontinae (from Ancient Greek μάχαιρα '' machaira,'' a type of Ancient Greek sword and ὀδόντος ''odontos'' meaning tooth) is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the cat family Felidae, representing the earliest ...

s that lived in

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

, and

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 ...

from the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

to the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

. The best known Metalurini genera are '' Dinofelis'' and '' Metailurus''. Metailurini had canines longer than ''

Neofelis ''Neofelis'' is a genus comprising two extant cat species in Southeast Asia: the clouded leopard (''Neofelis nebulosa'') of mainland Asia, and the Sunda clouded leopard (''Neofelis diardi'') of Sumatra and Borneo. The scientific name ''Neofel ...

'', but smaller than true saber toothed cats. The teeth were also more conical than flat, so called "scimitar-toothed", having broad and mildly elongated upper canines. Like most extinct cats, the majority of species in Metailurini are known primarily from fragments. However, the systematic position and taxonomy of these creatures is now accepted as being true members of

Felidae Felidae ( ) is the Family (biology), family of mammals in the Order (biology), order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats. A member of this family is also called a felid ( ). The 41 extant taxon, extant Felidae species exhibit the gre ...

and descended from ''

Proailurus ''Proailurus'' is an extinct felid genus that lived in Europe and Asia approximately 25–30.8 million years ago in the Late Oligocene and Miocene. Fossils have been found in Mongolia, Germany, and Spain. Etymology The generic name ''Proailurus' ...

'' and ''

Pseudaelurus ''Pseudaelurus'' is a prehistoric cat that lived in Europe, Asia and North America in the Miocene between approximately twenty and eight million years ago. It is considered to be a paraphyletic grade ancestral to living felines and pantherines ...

''. Within Felidae, they had been traditionally considered to belong in

Machairodontinae Machairodontinae (from Ancient Greek μάχαιρα ''Makhaira, machaira,'' a type of Ancient Greek sword and ὀδόντος ''odontos'' meaning tooth) is an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the cat family Felidae, representing the ...

, albeit some have in the past proposed a relationship to

Pantherinae The Pantherinae is a subfamily of the Felidae; it was named and first described by Reginald Innes Pocock in 1917 as only including the ''Panthera'' species, but later also came to include the clouded leopards (genus ''Neofelis''). The Pantherin ...

,Lars W. van den Hoek Ostende, Michael Morlo, Doris Nagel: ''Fossils explained 52 Majestic killers: the sabre-toothed cats.'' Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Geology Today, Vol. 22, No. 4, July–August 200
online
/ref> all phylogenetic analyses support the former classification but the

monophyly In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent comm ...

of the taxon itself might not be supported.

History

Metailurini was first named as a tribe by Beaumont in 1964 for the genera ''Metailurus'', ''Therailurus'', and tentatively ''Dinofelis''. ''Stenailurus'' was described in 1972 and assigned to the group, which the authors elevated to a subfamily Metailurinae. In a 1983 review of machairodontine classification, Berta & Galiano added ''Adelphailurus'' and ''Pontosmilus'' to the tribe, though subsequent papers consider ''Pontosmilus'' a junior synonym of the machairodontin ''Paramachaerodus'', and ''Therailurus'' a junior synonym of ''Dinofelis''. A further genus was added in 1987 with the description of ''Fortunictis''. The most recent addition was the genus ''Yoshi'' in 2014.

Classification

References

Machairodontinae Mammal tribes Miocene carnivorans Miocene first appearances {{feline-stub