An ancient bear dog discovered in France has been christened after a child-murdering cyclops

The presence of these animals millions of years ago was proved by a jawbone fossil.

They were strong predators who roamed Asia, southern Africa, Europe, and North America more than 7.5 million years ago with teeth that could cut flesh from bones. For the first time, scientists have discovered the jawbone of one of these extinct bear dogs, which sheds light on just how dangerous these canines were and confirms that bear dogs were found all over the planet.

Even though they share many morphological characteristics with creatures from both the bear and canine families, bear dogs, an extinct land-based carnivore family in Amphicyonidae, are not bears or dogs.

The bear dog's fossilized lower jawbone may represent a brand-new species or maybe a brand-new genus. Tartaro, a terrifying one-eyed monster from Basque mythology, lived in Béarn in the late 8th century B.C., in the southwest region of France, where the fossil was discovered, and the researchers named the genus Tartarocyon in honor of him.

An 8-inch (20-centimeter) long mandible was unearthed in coastal debris rich in ancient shells and fossilized marine organisms.

"The teeth are the most prominent characteristic of the jawbone," research author Floréal Solé told Live Science in an email. Solé is a paleontologist at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. "Bone-crushing mesocarnivore" is how scientists describe the fossil's fourth lower premolar, which has never before been observed in the group.

Like bears, bear dogs walked with a heavy gait and flat feet, but their legs and snouts were longer than most dogs. Animals weighing 20 to 705 pounds lived during the Miocene period (23 million to 5.3 million years ago) (9 to 320 kilograms). Tartarocyon, according to research, was a large species with an estimated 441 pounds (200 kg).

The relationship between bear dogs and other animal families is a mystery to paleontologists. Amphicyonids were compared by some paleontologists to dogs and wolves, while others determined that they were more closely related to ursids (pandas and bears), according to Solé.

The discovery of a new premolar shape in a bear dog, according to Solé, was "extremely exciting." Furthermore, it raises questions regarding how this species may have diverged from the rest of the group, maybe in an area where populations were separated. According to Solé, "Tartarocyon may belong to a branch of the European Amphicyonids that originated locally" because of the original form of its teeth.

Paleontologists utilized scanners and digital reconstructions at the Natural History Museum Basel in Switzerland to create a 3D model of the newly discovered mandible.

Mennecart, "the mandible is nearly whole and well-preserved in 3D, with the little premolars also retained." Only the two hammer strikes were utilized to collect the sediment that wasn't there.

During the Miocene, a sea covered much of southwest France, and a mountain range to the south surrounded the area where the fossil was located on the northern edge of the Pyrenees. This is the first time an Amphicyonid fossil has been discovered in the area, indicating that bear dogs once ranged across Europe in greater numbers than previously thought possible.

During the Miocene, "the Amphicyonids' geographic spread was expanded," Solé noted. "It doesn't matter how little or how isolated a tooth is; every discovery is significant."

Article source : https://www.livescience.com/bear-dog-pyrenees-fossil

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