First occurrence of the ‘hunting hyena’ Chasmaporthetes in the Late Miocene fossil bearing localities of Toros Menalla, Chad (Africa)

Abstract

AbstractLate Miocene localities of Toros Menalla (Chad) have yielded many bones of fossil vertebrates with a lot of mammalian remains. Among the mammals, there are several Carnivora taxa, especially hyenids. The family Hyaenidae is very well developed during this period with classical bone crusher species but also with flesh eater taxa which are called hunting hyenas. The genus Chasmaporthetes is one of these taxa. It was described from North America, Asia, Euro-pa and South Africa but it is recorded for the first time in central Africa. The Chadian specimens are close to the South African species C. australis (Hendey, 1974) but differs through some morphological and metrical details. C. australis is a huge hunting hyena, a little bigger than the extant species Crocuta crocuta, the spotted hyena. An isolated premolar recorded in the locality Sahabi (Libya) belongs probably to the same group. The spreading of this large hunting species is probably correlated with the abundance of large ungulates in the local faunas.