Using a fossilized mandible, an international research team has identified a new species belonging to Amphicyonidae, which is a now extinct family of terrestrial predators.
Because the animals in this family looked like something in between a big dog and a bear, they also go by the name “bear dogs” in English, that is, bear dogs.
The specimen that researchers now describe in the journal Peerj lived about 12 million years ago and is believed to have weighed around 200 kg. That is, much like a full-grown male lion. The animal is named Tartarocyon after Tartaro, which is a strong and one-eyed giant that figures in Basque mythology. The choice of name comes from the fact that the find was made in the Pyrenees in southwestern France, where this Basque giant is a well-known filur.
The newfound animal belongs to a family which in turn belongs to the same group of canine predators that also dogs, cats, seals, bears and badgers belong to.
These bear dogs were common throughout Europe during the period known as the Miocene, which lasted 23 to 5.3 million years ago. That is, long before we humans existed, but several million years after, for example, the dinosaurs. The last species of Amphicyonidae is believed to have disappeared from Europe at the end of the time period, about 7.5 million years ago.
Read more: Only ten of the world’s smallest marine mammals remain