Tiny Ancestor of Lions, Tigers & Bears Discovered

typhlonectes:

Tiny Ancestor of Lions, Tigers & Bears Discovered (Oh My!)

by Stephanie Pappas, Jan. 06, 2014

Lions, tigers, bears and even loyal pups and playful kitties all come
from the same line of carnivorous mammals, a lineage whose origins are
lost in time. Now, scientists have discovered one of the earliest
ancestors of all modern carnivores in Belgium.

The new species, Dormaalocyon latouri, was a 2-lb (1 kg) tree-dweller that likely fed on even smaller mammals and insects.

“It wasn’t frightening. It wasn’t dreadful,” said study researcher
Floréal Solé, a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural
Sciences in Brussels. What it was, Solé said, is a clue to the
beginnings of today’s toothy beasts. “It is one of the oldest carnivorous mammals which is related to present-day carnivores,” Solé told LiveScience.

All modern carnivores descend from a single group, one of four groups of carnivorous mammals found in the Paleocene and Eocene periods,
Solé said. The Paleocene ran from 66 million to 56 million years ago,
and the Eocene followed from 56 to 33.9 million years ago.

The carnivoraforms, as they’re known, appear widespread during the
Eocene, but without earlier fossils, paleontologists are unsure about
their origins. Solé and his colleagues examined fossils from the very
earliest Eocene, about 56 million years ago, from Dormaal, Belgium, east
of Brussels…

(read more: Live Science)

illustrations: Charlène Letenneur (MNHN) & Pascale Golinvaux (RBINS)