Pseudaelurus
Pseudaelurus is a prehistoric cat that lived in Europe, Asia and North America in the Miocene between approximately twenty and eight million years ago. It is considered to be a paraphyletic grade ancestral to living felines and pantherines as well as the extinct machairodonts (saber-tooths), and is a successor to Proailurus. It originated from Eurasia and was the first cat to reach North America, when it entered the continent at about 18.5 Ma ending a 'cat-gap' of 7 million years. The slender proportions of the animal, together with its short, viverrid-like legs, suggest that it may have been an agile climber of trees.
| Pseudaelurus Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Pseudaelurus jawbone from the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Germany | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | †Pseudaelurus Gervais, 1850 |
| Type species | |
| †Pseudaelurus quadridentatus (Blainville, 1843) sensu Gervais, 1850 | |
| Other Species | |
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| Synonyms | |
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P. quadridentatus
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