genus of extinct placental mammals From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Machaeroides ("dagger-like") was a genus of sabre-toothed creodonts which lived during the Eocene (56 to 34 mya). Its fossils were found in the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is the earliest known sabre-toothed mammal.
Machaeroides Temporal range: | |
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Machaeroides eothen skull | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | †Creodonta |
Family: | †Oxyaenidae |
Subfamily: | †Machaeroidinae |
Genus: | †Machaeroides Matthew, 1909 |
Type species | |
Machaeroides eothen Matthew, 1909 | |
Species | |
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It looked like a small, dog-sized saber-toothed cat. Machaeroides had a longer skull than a cat-family animal, and it walked plantigrade, with its palms and heels on the ground, instead of on its toes like a cat or dog.
The long survival of these small animals shows that their killing method suited small cats as well as large cats.
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