Eomellivora

Eomellivora is an extinct genus of prehistoric mustelids, closely related to the honey badger, known from Eurasia and North America, and tentatively Africa. It was one of the biggest mustelids ever known, bigger and more hypercarnivorous than the modern wolverine.[1]

Eomellivora
Temporal range: Miocene,
Eomellivora piveteaui mandible
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Family: Mustelidae
Genus: †Eomellivora
Zdansky, 1924
Type species
†Eomellivora wimani
Zdansky, 1924
Other species
  • Eomellivora fricki (Pia, 1939)
  • Eomellivora hungarica Kretzoi, 1942
  • Eomellivora ursogulo (Orlov, 1947)
  • Eomellivora piveteaui Ozansoy, 1965
  • Eomellivora? tugenensis Morales & Pickford, 2005
Synonyms
  • Hadrictis fricki Pia, 1939
  • Perunium ursogulo Orlov, 1947

Eomellivora was long thought to contain only one species, E. wimani, with Wolsan and Semenov (1996) treating E. piveteaui as a younger subspecies of E. wimani, but new remains of E. piveteaui described in 2015 allowed for recognition of E. piveteaui as distinct from E. wimani, but also treatment of E. ursogulo (Orlov, 1948) and E. hungarica Kretzoi, 1942 from the eastern Paratethys region. The placement of the African species Eomellivora tugenensis in Eomellivora is tentative.[1][2]

Taxonomy
Comparison of Eomellivora species

The genus Hadrictis Pia, 1939, described from a skull found in late Miocene deposits in Austria, is a synonym of Eomellivora.[3]

References
  1. Valenciano, Alberto; Abella, Juan; Sanisidro, Oscar; Hartstone-Rose, Adam; Álvarez-Sierra, María Ángeles; Morales, Jorge (27 May 2015). "Complete description of the skull and mandible of the giant mustelid Eomellivora piveteaui Ozansoy, 1965 (Mammalia, Carnivora, Mustelidae), from Batallones (MN10), late Miocene (Madrid, Spain)". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 35 (4): e934570. doi:10.1080/02724634.2014.934570.
  2. Wolsan, M. and Semenov, Y.A. 1996. A revision of the late Miocene mustelid carnivoran Eomellivora. Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia, 39:593-604.
  3. Valenciano, Alberto, Abella, Juan, Göhlich, Ursula B., Álvarez-Sierra, M. Ángeles, and Morales, Jorge, 2017. Re-evaluation of the very large Eomellivora fricki (Pia, 1939) (Carnivora, Mustelidae, Mellivorinae) from the Late Miocene of Austria. Palaeontologia Electronica 20.1.17A: 1-22. https://doi.org/10.26879/691 palaeo-electronica.org/content/2017/1830-the-large-eomellivora-fricki


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