Early Saber-Toothed Cat Gets New Face after Decades of Mystery
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A nearly complete skull unearthed decades ago in Arizona has given paleontologists their clearest look yet at Adelphailurus kansensis, an enigmatic felid species that inhabited North America more than 5 million years ago and occupied an early branch of the saber-toothed cat family tree.
Life appearance of Adelphailurus kansensis based on the newly described material. Image credit: Jesús Gamarra. Adelphailurus kansensis is an early-diverging machairodontine felid that prowled North America about 7 to 5 million years ago.
The species was first described in 1934 from a fragmentary jaw discovered in Kansas. Since then, additional fossils had been attributed to Adelphailurus kansensis, but its anatomy remained poorly understood because no complete skull had been studied. “The machairodontine felid Adelphailurus kansensis was a puma-sized felid, originally described from the Late Hemphillian (latest Miocene) deposits of the Edson Quarry, Kansas,” said University of California, Berkeley paleontologists Narimane Chatar and Z.
“The holotype consists of left and right maxillae with a nearly complete dentition.” “Since then, additional material has been referred to this species.” “In 1983, paleontologists identified postcranial remains from the Wikieup local fauna (Mohave County, Arizona), housed at the American Museum of Natural History, but did not describe the full set of fossil remains from the locality, which includes a virtually complete cranium with associated canines and mandibular fragments.”
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