Dinictis

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Extinct genus of carnivores

title: "Dinictis" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["nimravidae", "paleogene-mammals-of-north-america", "white-river-fauna", "eocene-carnivorans", "oligocene-feliforms", "miocene-feliforms", "aquitanian-genus-extinctions", "monotypic-prehistoric-carnivoran-genera", "fossil-taxa-described-in-1854"] description: "Extinct genus of carnivores" topic_path: "general/nimravidae" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinictis" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Extinct genus of carnivores ::

| fossil_range = Late Eocene (Chadronian)to Late Oligocene (Arikareean), | image = Dinictis felina, South Dakota, USA, Early Oligocene - Royal Ontario Museum - DSC00117.JPG | image_caption = Skeleton from South Dakota, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto | taxon = Dinictis | authority = Leidy, 1854 | type_species = †Dinictis felina | type_species_authority = Leidy, 1854

Dinictis is a genus of the Nimravidae, an extinct family of feliform mammalian carnivores, also known as "false saber-toothed cats". Assigned to the subfamily Nimravinae, Dinictis was endemic to North America from the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene epochs (35.7—29.5 million years ago), existing for about . Including supplementary materials

Taxonomy

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/ExtmDinictis1921-029-11.jpg" caption="Restoration by [[Robert Bruce Horsfall"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Dinictis_felina_fm.jpg" caption="Skeleton in the [[Field Museum of Natural History"] ::

Dinictis was named by American paleontologist Joseph Leidy in 1854. Its type is Dinictis felina. It was assigned to the Nimravidae by Cope (1880); and to the Nimravinae by Flynn and Galiano (1982), Bryant (1991), and Martin (1998).

In a 2016 study, the genus was found to contain only the species Dinictis felina.

Description

Dinictis had a sleek body 1.1 m long, short legs 0.45 m high with only incompletely retractable claws, powerful jaws, and a long tail. Dinictis walked plantigrade (flat-footed), unlike modern felids. A 2012 study estimated that Dinictis could've weighed around 20 kg. The shape of its skull is reminiscent of a felid skull rather than of the extremely short skull of the Machairodontinae. Compared with those of the more recent machairodonts, its upper canines were relatively small, but they nevertheless distinctly protruded from its mouth. Below the tips of the canines, its lower jaw spread out in the form of a lobe.

Ecology

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Dinictis_and_Protoceras.jpg" caption="Restoration of ''Dinictis'' chasing a ''[[Protoceras]]'', [[Charles R. Knight"] ::

Dinictis lived in North America with fossils found in Saskatchewan, Canada and Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon in the United States. Including supplementary materials Fossil evidence suggests Hyenaodon horridus may have occasionally predated on Dinictis.

References

Benes, Josef. Prehistoric Animals and Plants. Pg. 204. Prague: Artua, 1979.

References

  1. (26 October 2021). "The largest hoplophonine and a complex new hypothesis of nimravid evolution". Scientific Reports.
  2. (1880). "On the extinct cats of America".
  3. J. J. Flynn and H. Galiano. 1982. Phylogeny of early Tertiary Carnivora, with a description of a new species of Protictis from the middle Eocene of northwestern Wyoming. ''American Museum Novitates''
  4. H. N. Bryant. 1991. Phylogenetic relationships and systematics of the Nimravidae (Carnivora). ''Journal of Mammalogy''.
  5. (2016). "Taxonomic and systematic revisions to the North American Nimravidae (Mammalia, Carnivora)". PeerJ.
  6. Antón, Mauricio. (2013). "Sabertooth". University of Indiana Press.
  7. Meachen, J. A.. (2012). "Morphological convergence of the prey-killing arsenal of sabertooth predators". Paleobiology.
  8. John W. Hoganson and Jeff Person (2011). [https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/documents/newsletter/2011Summer/Toothpuncturemarks.pdf "Tooth puncture marks on a 30 million year old ''Dinictis'' skull."], Geo News, p. 12-17

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

nimravidaepaleogene-mammals-of-north-americawhite-river-faunaeocene-carnivoransoligocene-feliformsmiocene-feliformsaquitanian-genus-extinctionsmonotypic-prehistoric-carnivoran-generafossil-taxa-described-in-1854