Megantereon, Croizet & Jobert, 1828

Christiansen, Per & Adolfssen, Jan S., 2007, Osteology and ecology of Megantereon cultridens SE 311 (Mammalia; Felidae; Machairodontinae), a sabrecat from the Late Pliocene - Early Pleistocene of Senéze, France, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 151 (4), pp. 833-884 : 834

MEGANTEREON

The type specimen of Megantereon was called Ursus cultridens ( Cuvier, 1824) , as Cuvier thought the fragments of the canines and the associated drawings he studied were the remains a bear. In a study of the palaeofauna of Perrier, Croizet & Jobert (1828) described two varieties of U. cultridens based on canines, and they described a new species based on a mandibular ramus as Felis megantereon , and also proposed a new generic name, Megantereon . Almost simultaneously, Bravard (1828) concluded that the canines and the mandible referred to U. cultridens and F. megantereon (Megantereon) apparently belonged to a portion of a felid skull, which he had collected ( Ficcarelli, 1979). Bravard proposed the name Felis cultridens for the serrated canines, and Megantereon megantereon for the non-serrated canines, which subsequently has caused some confusion. As the specimens belong to a cat and not a bear, Megantereon has priority, and the specific name cultridens has priority to megantereon , which is to be regarded as a nomen nodum. Accordingly, the systematic palaeontology of Megantereon is

Order: Carnivora Bowdich, 1821

Family: Felidae Gray, 1821

Subfamily: Machairodontinae Gill, 1871

Genus: Megantereon Croizet & Jobert, 1828

Species: cultridens Cuvier, 1824

Etymology: Mega - (gr.) large, - terion (gr.) tool ~ large tool

In this paper, we describe the skeleton of Megantereon cultridens SE 311 in detail, and compare it with the few other well-known sabrecats, and with a selection of extant large felids. Skull and dental terminology are based on Crouch (1969) and Osborn (1907), respectively, and soft tissue terminology is based on Schumacher (1961), Crouch (1969), Turnbull (1970) and Done et al. (2000). We also analyse its morphology and attempt to reconstruct aspects of its palaeobiology. Throughout the paper, we compare skeletal element sizes with those of other felids. This was done by means of one-way ANOVA and post-hoc Tukey HSD tests, or one-sample t -tests, as appropriate, on log 10 -transformed values, whereas ratios were angular (arcsine) transformed to restore normality ( Sokal & Rohlf, 1995).