Machaeroides
| Machaeroides | |
|---|---|
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| Machaeroides eothen skull | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | †Creodonta |
| Family: | †Oxyaenidae |
| Subfamily: | †Machaeroidinae |
| Genus: | †Machaeroides Matthew, 1909 |
| Type species | |
| Machaeroides eothen Matthew, 1909
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| Species | |
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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.
