Paleontologists at the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-CSIC have identified a new genus and species of medium-sized feline from a partial jaw found in the urban area of Madrid, Spain.
Reconstruction of the mandible, skull, masticatory muscles, and life appearance of Magerifelis peignei. Image credit: Jesús Gamarra.
The new cat species, named Magerifelis peignei, lived in what is now Spain some 15.5 million years ago (Middle Miocene epoch).
It belonged to Felinae, a subfamily of small cats having a bony hyoid because of which they are able to purr but not roar.
“Magerifelis peignei is the sister group of a clade composed of Pristifelis attica, living species of the genus Felis (such as Felis margarita, Felis silvestris, and Felis lybica), Profelis aurata, and Lynx pardinus,” said lead author Dr. Manuel Salesa and his colleagues from the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-CSIC.
The fossilized remains of Magerifelis peignei were found in 2007 at Príncipe Pío-2, a recently discovered fossil locality placed in the urban limits of Madrid city, Spain.
The specimen is very well preserved, showing the complete hemimandible, as well as all the teeth except the incisors.
It is so complete and in such a good state of preservation that it provides information of great interest for carrying out paleoecological inferences on this new feline.
“We recovered a practically complete jaw that preserved almost all of its teeth in exceptional condition,” Dr. Siliceo said.
“The most surprising thing was that it had a tiny lower second molar, a tooth absent in all living and fossil felids except Proailurus.”
The estimated body mass of Magerifelis peignei is 7.61 kg, which falls within the range of female individuals of Lynx rufus, Leptailurus serval, and Caracal caracal.
“When compared with living felines, the hemimandible of Magerifelis peignei from Príncipe Pío-2 is larger than that of Felis silvestris, showing a similar size to those of Caracal caracal, Leptailurus serval, and Lynx pardinus,” the palenontologists said.
“Nevertheless, if the mandibles of these species are shown at the same mandibular length for better comparison, the dentition of the new speices is clearly smaller than those of these latter species, and thus, the specimen has a more robust appearance, with a relatively higher mandibular corpus, very similar to that of the much larger Lynx lynx.”
According to the authors, Magerifelis peignei was capable of generating a strong bite force when hunting, and that would have allowed it to kill relatively large prey.
“The Príncipe Pío-2 feline could have preyed upon relatively larger prey than those of extant, similarly sized felines,” they said.
Their paper was published this month in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
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Manuel J. Salesa et al. Unraveling the diversity of early felines: a new genus of Felinae (Carnivora, Felidae) from the Middle Miocene of Madrid (Spain). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, published online January 9, 2024; doi: 10.1080/02724634.2023.2288924