Eomellivora is an Extinction genus of prehistoric , closely related to the honey badger, known from Eurasia and North America, and tentatively Africa. It was one of the biggest mustelids ever known, bigger and more hypercarnivorous than the modern wolverine.
Taxonomy
Eomellivora was long
thought to contain only one
species,
E. wimani, with Wolsan and Semenov (1996) treating
E. piveteaui as a younger
subspecies of
E. wimani, but new remains of
E. piveteaui described in 2015 allowed for recognition of
E. piveteaui as distinct from
E. wimani, but also treatment of
E. ursogulo (Orlov, 1948) and
E. hungarica Kretzoi, 1942 from the eastern
Paratethys region. The placement of the African species
Eomellivora tugenensis in
Eomellivora is tentative.
[Wolsan, M. and Semenov, Y.A. 1996. A revision of the late Miocene mustelid carnivoran Eomellivora. Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia, 39:593-604.] The genus
Hadrictis Pia, 1939, described from a skull found in
Late Miocene deposits in
Austria, is a junior synonym of
Eomellivora
palaeo-electronica.org/content/2017/1830-the-large-eomellivora-fricki
Palaeoecology
E. piveteaui was a
cursorial carnivore that consumed meat and bones.
