A nearly complete skull found in the Egyptian desert has unveiled a new species of 30 million-year-old ancient and large carnivorous hunter Hyaenodonta.
With sharp teeth and powerful jaw muscles suggesting a strong bite, the recently identified “Bastetodon” was a “terrifying” mammal the size of a leopard.
This animal would have been the leader of all carnivores and of the food chain when our simian ancestors were in the process of evolution.
Extraordinary Discovery in the Fayum Forest
The findings, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, detail how this fierce creature likely hunted primates, primitive hippos, primitive elephants, and hyraxes in the lush Fayum forest in Egypt, which is now a desert.
Describing the discovery, paleontologist and lead author Shorouq Al-Ashqar, from Mansoura University and the American University in Cairo, remarked: “For days, the team meticulously excavated layers of rock dating back around 30 million years. Just as we were about to conclude our work, a team member discovered something remarkable: a set of large teeth protruding from the ground. Their excited cry brought the team together and marked the beginning of an extraordinary discovery: a nearly complete skull of an ancient apex carnivore, a dream for any vertebrate paleontologist.”
Bastetodon belongs to a species of an extinct group of carnivorous mammals called hyaenodonts. Hyaenodonts evolved long before modern carnivores, such as cats, dogs, and hyenas. These predators with teeth similar to hyenas hunted in African ecosystems after the extinction of the dinosaurs.
The team, known as the “Sallam Lab,” named the specimen after the ancient Egyptian goddess with a cat head, Bastet, symbolizing protection, pleasure, and good health.
The name acknowledges the region where the specimen was found, famous for its fossils and artifacts from Ancient Egypt. The name also refers to the short, feline snout and teeth of this formidable carnivore the size of a leopard (-odon meaning tooth).
Expeditions and Scientific Reassessments
The skull was unearthed during the Sallam Lab expedition to the Fayum depression, an area where excavations reveal an important temporal window spanning about 15 million years of evolutionary history of mammals in Africa.
This time frame not only captures the transition from the global warming of the Eocene to the global cooling of the Oligocene, but also reveals how these climatic changes played a crucial role in the shaping of ecosystems that we still see today.
Beyond the discovery of a new ancient creature, the finding of Bastetodon has already allowed the research team to reassess a group of hyaenodonts the size of a lion that was discovered in the Fayum rocks over 120 years ago.
In their article, the team also erected the genus Sekhmetops to describe this century-old material and to honor Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess of anger and war in ancient Egyptian mythology (-ops meaning face).
Habitat of Bastetodon and Sekhmetops
In 1904, Sekhmetops was included in a European group of hyaenodonts. The team demonstrated that Bastetodon and Sekhmetops belonged to a group of hyaenodonts that actually originated in Africa. In ancient Egypt, Bastet was often associated with Sekhmet, connecting the two genera scientifically and symbolically.
The study shows that the relatives of Bastetodon and Sekhmetops spread from Africa in multiple waves, eventually reaching Asia, Europe, India, and North America. 18 million years ago, some relatives of these hyaenodonts were among the largest carnivorous mammals to have ever walked the Earth.
However, cataclysmic changes in global climate and tectonic shifts in Africa opened the continent to the relatives of modern cats, dogs, and hyenas.
As environments and prey changed, specialized carnivorous hyaenodonts decreased in diversity, eventually became extinct, and left our primate relatives facing a new set of antagonists.
Cover photo: Ahmad Morsi
Have you visited our YouTube channel yet? Subscribe!
