Hoplofoneus , also goplophone ( Latin Hoplophoneus , from other Greek ὅπλον “weapon” and φονεύς “killer” [1] [2] ) is a genus of extinct cat-like animals from the Nimravid family, or “false saber-toothed cats” [3] [ 2] , the subfamily goplofonins, which was a North American endemic and lived on Earth from the Late Eocene to the Early Oligocene , about 30 million years ago [4] [3] .
† Goplofoneus | ||||||||||||||||
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 Skeleton of hoplofoneus at the National Museum of Nature and Science | ||||||||||||||||
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| Hoplophoneus Cope , 1874 | ||||||||||||||||
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Content
- 1 Taxonomy
- 1.1 History of discovery and name
- 1.2 Types
- 2 General description
- 3 notes
- 4 References
Taxonomy
History of discovery and name
Initially, this genus was known as Drepanodon [2] , but was renamed thanks to the famous paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope in 1874. Palmer (1904) and Scott and Yepsen (1936) considered this name synonymous with Drepanodon [5] . Hoplofoneus was assigned to the hoplophoneids (Hoplophoneidae) Flynn and Galiano in 1982 [6] , to the nimravids Bryant in 1991 [7] , and to the Nimravinae subfamily proper by Cop in 1974, as well as by Simpson (1941), Hough (1949) and Martin (1998).
Now there are a total of 26 collections of the remains of hoplofoneus all over the world, in the USA (in Oregon , Nebraska , South Dakota and Wyoming ) and Canada ( Saskatchewan ) [4] .
Views
- H. dakotensis - discovered by Hatcher in 1895 .
- H. kurteni - described by Martin in 1992 .
- H. mentalis - the first description was made by Sinclair in 1921 , a synonym for this species is H. oharrai .
- H. occidentalis - discovered by Leidy in 1866 , a synonymous taxon - Dinotomus atrox .
- H. primaevus - discovered by Joseph Lady and Richard Owen in 1851 (synonyms - H. insolens, H. latidens, H. marshi, H. molossus, H. robustus, Machaerodus oreodontis ).
- H. sicarius - Sinclair and Yepsen, 1927 , synonym - Eusmilus sicanus .
General Description
Although goplofoneus was not a cat in the literal sense of the word, it looked like modern large cats [3] and had an equally massive body, being no less dangerous than real saber-toothed cats [1] . Like its relatives, the hoplofoneus had two long and sharp [1] bony protrusions ( flanges ) hanging from the lower jaw; they were especially large and massive in the species H. sicarius and H. mentalis [2] [8] . Due to this, the fangs received more support and protection, because when the animal closed its mouth, the tips of these very upper fangs went far beyond the lower jaw [2] and, like the relative of the hoplofoneus , eusmilus , were placed in special meaty “pockets” [1] .
The relatively short legs [1] of the goplofoneus emphasize that he could very quickly reach maximum running speed, but, nevertheless, it was quite limited, because his short legs could not cover a great distance for each step. In this regard, it is assumed that the hoplofoneus was an ambush predator, that is, it lay in the thicket, waiting for the victim, before making a sharp throw from its shelter, starting the chase before the victim has time to react and escape properly. Among the prey of hoplofoneus, there were probably primitive horses, mesogippus , which not only were inferior to modern horses in size, but also fed on a variety of plants, including thick and tall, where hoplofoneus could hide; horses switched to grass exclusively later. This greatly facilitated the task of hoplofoneus during the hunt [2] .
Hoplofoneus reached a length of approximately 1.3 meters (in some sources it is reported that it reached a meter length [3] ), its weight is estimated at 160 kilograms [2] [9] .
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 Bob Strauss. Hoplophoneus (English) . dinosaurs.about.com (About.com Guide). Date of treatment October 24, 2013.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Hoplophoneus (English) . prehistoric-wildlife.com . Date of treatment October 24, 2013.
- ↑ 1 2 3 4 I know the world: The history of life on Earth / Pintal T. Yu .. - M .: "Publishing house AST", 2004. - P. 466. - 512 p. - ISBN 5-17-024940-3 .
- ↑ 1 2 Paleobiligy Database: Hoplophoneus , basic info . paleodb.org . Date of treatment October 19, 2013.
- ↑ WB Scott and GL Jepsen. 1936. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
- ↑ Flynn, J .; H. Galiano. Phylogeny of early Tertiary carnivora, with a description of a new species of Protictis from the Middle Eocene of northwestern Wyoming (English) // American Museum Novitates: journal. - 1982. - No. 2725 . - P. 1-64 .
- ↑ Bryant, HN Phylogenetic relationships and systematics of the Nimravidae (Carnivora) (Eng.) // Journal of Mammalogy : journal. - 1991. - No. 72 . - P. 56-78 .
- ↑ Turner, Alan. The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives: an illustrated guide. - New York: Columbia University Press, 1997 .-- P. 234. - ISBN 0-231-10228-3 .
- ↑ Sorkin, B. A biomechanical constraint on body mass in terrestrial mammalian predators (English) // Lethaia : journal. - 2008 .-- 10 April ( vol. 41 , no. 4 ). - P. 333—347 . - DOI : 10.1111 / j.1502-3931.2007.00091.x .