Barbourofelis
Name:
Barbourofelis
(Barbour’s cat).
Phonetic: Bar-bore-os-fell-iss.
Named By: Schultz, Schultz & Martin -
1970.
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia,
Barbourofelidae.
Species: B. fricki (type),
B.
loveorum, B. morrisi, B. osborni, B. piveteaui, B.
vallensiensis, B. whitfordi.
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Up to 1.8 meters long, 90 centimetres high at the shoulder. Full size depends upon species.
Known locations: North America.
Time period: Serravallian to Messinian of the
Miocene.
Fossil representation: Many specimens.
Barbourofelis
is easily one of the largest of the ‘false
sabre-toothed cats’
which were carnivorous mammals that through convergent evolution
evolved to be very much like cats in form even though they are in fact
quite distantly related. For this reason Barbourofelis
is often
quoted as being a member of the Nimravidae, a large group of false
sabre toothed cats, although most palaeontologists place
Barbourofelis within its own related but distinct
group; the
Barbourofelidae.
Barbourofelis
was a
powerfully built predator with a skeletal structure that is indicative
of a strongly developed musculature similar in scale to the much later
and true sabre-toothed cat Smilodon
populator. This hints that like
Smilodon populator, Barbourofelis
was very
physical in its attacks
upon animals, subduing them with brute strength before using its
enlarged sabre like upper canines to deliver a killing bite. The
large size also hints at a specialisation in slower but more powerful
prey like primitive rhinos that would have been very common in North
America during the Miocene.
Barbourofelis
was not the
only false sabre-toothed cat in North America, although the other
earlier forms such as nimravids like Nimravus
and Hoplophoneus
were much smaller. The main predatory
competition for Barbourofelis would have been bear
dogs like Amphicyon
that were also very large and powerful predators. However niether
Barbourofelis nor Amphicyon
lived beyond the Miocene, and it’s
thought that a combination of climate change yielding new herbivores
and new more advanced predators to hunt them displaced these two
powerful animals as top predators, with extinction soon following.
Further reading
- Bulletin of the Nebraska State Museum 9(1). - C. B. Schultz et al -
1970.
- Barbourofelis (Nimravidae) and Nimravides
(Felidae), with a
Description of Two New Species from the Late Miocene of Florida. -
Journal of Mammalogy 62(1):122-139. - J. A. baskin - 1981.
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