Panthera balamoides
Panthera balamoides ("similar to jaguar") is a species described as an extinct species of the big cat genus Panthera that is known from a single fossil found in a Late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean NALMA, dated to 13,000 BP) age cenote in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. P. balamoides has only a single reported specimen, the distal end of a right humerus (upper arm bone), that is notably of exceptional size for a felid. It was unearthed in 2012 from an underwater cave and described in 2019 by an international group of paleontologists from Mexico and Germany led by Sarah R. Stinnesbeck. However, several authors have since proposed that the fossil comes from an ursid, possibly the extinct Arctotherium, and not of felid affinities.
| Panthera balamoides Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Holotype humerus in anterior and posterior views. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Subfamily: | Pantherinae |
| Genus: | Panthera |
| Species: | †P. balamoides |
| Binomial name | |
| †Panthera balamoides Stinnesbeck et al., 2019 | |
P. balamoides lived at the end of the Pleistocene, going extinct during the Quaternary Extinction Event with other megafauna. It has been inferred that it was cursorial in habits, with good climbing abilities like modern jaguars. This created a niche partition between it and other felids like the saber-toothed Smilodon which hunted in open environments.