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Machaeroides

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Machaeroides
Temporal range: Eocene
Machaeroides eothen skull
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Creodonta
Family: Oxyaenidae
Subfamily: Machaeroidinae
Genus: Machaeroides
Matthew, 1909
Type species
Machaeroides eothen
Matthew, 1909
Species
  • M. eothen
  • M. simpsoni

Machaeroides ("dagger-like") was a genus of sabre-toothed creodonts which lived during the Eocene (56 to 34 mya). Its fossils were found in the U.S. state of Wyoming. It is the earliest known sabre-toothed mammal.

It looked like a small, dog-sized saber-toothed cat. Machaeroides had a longer skull than a cat-family animal, and it walked plantigrade, with its palms and heels on the ground, instead of on its toes like a cat or dog.

The long survival of these small animals shows that their killing method suited small cats as well as large cats.