''Pristinailurus bristoli'' is a fossil species in the

carnivora Carnivora ( ) is an order of placental mammals specialized primarily in eating flesh, whose members are formally referred to as carnivorans. The order Carnivora is the sixth largest order of mammals, comprising at least 279 species. Carnivor ...

n family

Ailuridae Ailuridae is a family in the mammal order Carnivora. The family consists of the red panda (the sole living representative) and its extinct relatives. Georges Cuvier first described ''Ailurus'' as belonging to the raccoon family in 1825; this ...

, well-represented in the

Hemphillian The Hemphillian North American Stage on the geologic timescale is a North American faunal stage according to the North American Land Mammal Ages chronology (NALMA), typically set from 10,300,000 to 4,900,000 years BP. It is usually considered t ...

deposits at the

Gray Fossil Site The Gray Fossil Site is an Early Pliocene assemblage of fossils dating between 4.5 and 4.9 million years old, located near the community of Gray in Washington County, Tennessee, USA. The site was discovered during road construction on Tennessee ...

in Gray, Tennessee. It was significantly larger than the living ''Ailurus'' but probably possessed a weaker bite. Males appear to have been as much as twice the size of females.

References

Ailuridae Miocene musteloids Neogene mammals of North America Monotypic prehistoric carnivoran genera {{paleo-carnivora-stub