Promegantereon
genus of mammals
Promegantereon is an extinct genus of machairodont from the Miocene of Europe. It is one of the oldest machairodont cats in the Smilodontini and is believed to be an ancestor of Megantereon and Smilodon.
History and taxonomy
The species of Felis ogygia was first described by Kaup in 1832. In 1938, Kretzoi proposed moving it to the new genus Promegantereon. It was also thought to have been a species of Paramachairodus, however further analysis found that due to its more primitive morphology as evidenced by Salesa et al. in 2002 with an in-depth description of its anatomy, Promegantereon ogygia is believed to be its own genus and species and therefore should be separate from Paramachairodus.
Description
Promegantereon is one of the oldest known true saber-toothed cats. Its fossils were discovered in Cerro de los Batallones, a Late Miocene fossil site near Madrid, Spain. However, it was only known from skull fragments from Eppelsheim until the early 1990s when the Cerro de los Battlones fossil beds were discovered. The animal was about 58 centimetres (23 in) high at the shoulder, similar to a leopard in size, but with a more supple body.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as genus of mammals. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21368828. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1832, 1938 and 2002.
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This entry incorporates text from “Promegantereon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.