Do you ever wish you could travel back in time and see all the dinosaurs and animals that are extinct? or Would you go back and save Jesus?
Take a look at this Apex predator. The 30 million year-old skull was recently discovered in Egypt.
The leopard-size carnivore crushed early hippos and elephants with its strong jaws.
About 30 million years ago, parts of Egypt were covered in lush forests. Within those trees, lurked an order of fearsome big cat-sized carnivores called Hyaenodonta. These apex predators thrived after the dinosaurs went extinct, but would eventually meet their own untimely end.
Now, a team of scientists combing through the desert in present-day Fayum, Egypt have discovered an entirely new species of Hyaenodonta with tremendously powerful jaw muscles. The new species–Bastetodon syrtos–is described in a study published February 17 in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Spotting a skull
Hyaenodonts like Bastetodon evolved long before modern cats, dogs, hyenas, and other carnivorous mammals. They boasted sharp hyena-like teeth and stalked African ecosystems hunting for primates, early hippos, early elephants, and beaver-like hyraxes in the forests southwest of modern Cairo. Now a desert, a team of paletontologists were digging through 30 million-year old rock layers called the Fayum Depression for more evidence on mammal evolution in Africa.
“The Fayum is one of the most important fossil areas in Africa,” Matt Borths, a study co-author and Curator of Fossils at the Duke Lemur Center Museum of Natural History at Duke University, said in a statement. “Without it, we would know very little about the origins of African ecosystems and the evolution of African mammals like elephants, primates, and hyaenodonts.”
These historic rocks capture the transition from the warm Eocene epoch to the cooler Oligocene epoch, and were also holding onto an exciting discovery.
“Just as we were about to conclude our work, a team member spotted something remarkable—a set of large teeth sticking out of the ground,” Shorouq Al-Ashqar, a study co-author and paleontologist from Mansoura University and the American University in Cairo said in a statement. “His excited shout brought the team together, marking the beginning of an extraordinary discovery: a nearly complete skull of an ancient apex carnivore, a dream for any vertebrate paleontologist.”
The sharp teeth and powerful jaw muscles preserved on the skull suggest that it had a very strong bite. The specimen is named after the cat-headed ancient Egyptian goddess Bastet. Bastet symbolized protection, pleasure, and good health.
