''Quercylurus major'' is an extinct

nimravid Nimravidae is an extinct family of carnivorans, sometimes known as false saber-toothed cats, whose fossils are found in North America and Eurasia. Not considered to belong to the true cats (family Felidae), the nimravids are generally considere ...

carnivora Carnivora is a monophyletic order of placental mammals consisting of the most recent common ancestor of all cat-like and dog-like animals, and all descendants of that ancestor. Members of this group are formally referred to as carnivorans, ...

n, or "false sabre-tooth," from the early

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 ...

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 ...

. Its fossils are found from Early Oligocene strata in

Quercy Quercy (; oc, Carcin , locally ) is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north by Limousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue ...

. ''Q. major'' was possibly the largest nimravid ever known, as its fossils suggest it was similar in size to the modern-day

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear species found across Eurasia and North America. In North America, the populations of brown bears are called grizzly bears, while the subspecies that inhabits the Kodiak Islands of Alaska is ...

and was

scansorial Arboreal locomotion is the locomotion of animals in trees. In habitats in which trees are present, animals have evolved to move in them. Some animals may scale trees only occasionally, but others are exclusively arboreal. The habitats pose nu ...

. It was very muscular, walked on plantigrade (flat-footed). So far, there is only one described species within this genus - ''Q. major''. The species lived in the moist and humid forests of

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 ...

alongside fellow nimravid ''

Eofelis ''Eofelis'' is an extinct genus of small nimravid (false saber-toothed cats). They were catlike creatures that evolved in parallel with true cats but are not a part of the true cat lineage and have left no living descendants. Fossils have been ...

''. It was an apex predator in its environment, and it is likely that it hunted large ungulates by ambush.

Taxonomy

''Quercylurus'' was named by Ginsburg (1979). It was assigned to

Felidae Felidae () is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a felid (). The term "cat" refers both to felids in general and specifically to the ...

by Carroll (1988),R. L. Carroll. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution. W. H. Freeman and Company, New York 1-698. but later, it was then later placed within Nimravidae.

References

Nimravidae Oligocene feliforms Oligocene mammals of Europe Paleogene France Fossils of France Prehistoric carnivoran genera {{paleo-carnivora-stub