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ThalassoAtrox — The Nimravid

Published: 2017-10-03 16:43:48 +0000 UTC; Views: 6131; Favourites: 113; Downloads: 16
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Description

"Armed murder" is indeed the meaning of the name Hoplophoneus, one of many types of the nimravids, the false cats of the mid Cenozoic.

Much like how crocodiles were natures attempt at recreating the unrelated Triassic phytosaurs, the felines, one of Earth`s most effective and successful mammalian land carnivores alive today, are likewise very much copycats in terms of their carefully crafted predatory anatomy, a design that was initially conceived by the Eocene nimravids.

Both cats and nimravids are feliform carnivorans, but the nimravids are thought to be one of the most basal of the feliform groups, with hyenas, mongooses and civets being closer to the real cats than the former.

Nimravids thrived in North America between 39 to 24 million years ago, with numerous species from numerous different genera being known from various late Eocene and Oligocene fossil sights, outnumbering most other predators from that same faunal stage in America, like entelodonts, creodonts and the other terror birds, the bathornithids, in terms of diversity.

Troughout much of their reign, North America was a lush, tropical biome akin to Africa and south Asia and offered the nimravids a plentiful and diverse plethora of prey animals, like oreodonts, early, miniature horses and camels, protoceratids and various types of primitive rhinos.

Ranking among the biggest nimravids were several species of Hoplophoneus, such as H. sicarius and H. mentalis, which may have reached sizes comparable to jaguars, up to 150 kg, and had impressively large saber teeth, who in terms of lengh in comparison to body size, could easily have rivaled most species of saber-toothed cats, the machairodonts and barbourofelids.

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Comments: 10

Maxsharkzero15 [2018-12-04 11:10:08 +0000 UTC]

Tiger evolution

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Wesdaaman In reply to Maxsharkzero15 [2022-06-20 23:27:37 +0000 UTC]

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jmarkoff2 [2018-05-24 08:37:54 +0000 UTC]

pretty animal

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Wildgirl2000 [2017-10-03 18:32:44 +0000 UTC]

Nice artwork, dude.

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Tigon1Monster [2017-10-03 18:15:14 +0000 UTC]

Are you going to do Quercylurus, the biggest Nimravid, someday?

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MegaSpinosaur In reply to Tigon1Monster [2017-10-05 02:44:59 +0000 UTC]

You know you can't expect him to draw every prehistoric creature you mention, right?

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Tigon1Monster In reply to MegaSpinosaur [2017-10-05 02:46:27 +0000 UTC]

I know.

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Charlie2210 [2017-10-03 17:10:38 +0000 UTC]

I hesitate to say that this is an example of convergent evolution since tehnically it is close relatives and not very distant species.

On the other hand it is a good example that shows that even mother nature create her creatures on sheet of drafts (and no, I'm not a creationist).

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ThalassoAtrox In reply to Charlie2210 [2017-10-03 17:22:32 +0000 UTC]

Exept it is a clear cut example of convergent evolution, cats shared a common ancestor with the hyena/mongoose/civet liniage, which wasn`t also a common ancestor for the nimravids, therefore the similarities between cats and nimravids are convergent, not divergent.    

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Charlie2210 In reply to ThalassoAtrox [2017-10-03 17:26:52 +0000 UTC]

Thank you it's clearer.

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