Dinictis

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Dinictis
Fossil range: Late Eocene - Early Oligocene

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Nimravidae
Subfamily:	Nimravinae
Genus:	Dinictis

Species

Dinictis cyclops
Dinictis felina
Dinictis priseus
Dinictis squalidens

Dinictis was a member of the Nimravid family, also known as "false saber-toothed cats". It had a sleek body (1.1 m. long), short legs (0.6 m. high) with only incompletely retractable claws, powerful jaws, and a long tail. It was very similar to its close relative, Hoplophoneus. The shape of its skull is reminiscent of a felid skull rather than of the extremely short skull of machairodontids. Compared with those of the more recent machairods, 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.

Dinictis walked plantigrade (flat-footed), unlike modern cats. It looked like a small leopard and evidently its mode of life was similar to that of a leopard. It was probably not so particular about its food as its descendants, since reduction of the teeth was still in the early stages and Dinictis had not forgotten how to chew. Despite this, in its own environment it would have been a dreadful predator.

It lived in the plains of North America around 40 million years ago in the late Eocene and early Oligocene. Fossils were found in Saskatchewan in Canada, and Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Oregon in the United States.Dinictis evolved from its early ancestor Miacis which lived in the Paleocene