Prehistoric Hyena's Teeth Show Bone-Crushing Carnivore Roamed the Arctic.

[Cattledog]

Over a million years ago, among the chilly grasslands of the ancient Yukon, Canada’s most northwesterly territory, an unexpected beast roamed: a hyena. More lupine in appearance than its modern relatives, but still adept at crushing bones with its powerful jaws, this "running hyena" was the only species of its family to venture out of Eurasia and spread to the Americas. Paleontologists know the prehistoric carnivore as Chasmaporthetes.

The first Chasmaporthetes fossils were named nearly a century ago from the vicinity of the Grand Canyon, and accordingly, the ancient hyena’s scientific name roughly translates to “the hyena who saw the canyon.” Since that initial discovery, additional fossils have turned up from California to Florida, from northern Mexico to Kansas, and additional species have been unearthed in Africa and Eurasia. But there was always a missing piece to the puzzle. Paleontologists found Chasmaporthetes fossils in Eurasia, and the ancient predator clearly ranged widely through southern North America, but the fossils bridging the gap in a place called Beringia, where Siberia and Alaska were once joined by a land bridge, were seemingly nowhere to be found. A newly analyzed pair of teeth is helping to fill in part of that story.

A team of paleontologists led by researchers from the University at Buffalo describe the fossils today in the journal Open Quaternary. The teeth were collected back in the 1970s, found in the Yukon’s Old Crow Basin—a place that has yielded over 50,000 vertebrate fossils representing more than 80 species. Even though the hyena teeth were known in certain paleontology circles, no formal study had ever been published. Whispers of Arctic hyenas piqued the curiosity of University at Buffalo paleontologist Jack Tseng, who over years of discussions with coauthors Lars Werdelin and Grant Zazula eventually tracked down the teeth and positively identified them. “This was classic paleo collection detective work, involving a network of collaborators and collections managers,” Tseng says.


Article at:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/prehistoric-hyenas-teeth-show-bone-crushing-carnivore-roamed-canadian-arctic-180972436/?fbclid=IwAR2E0EDaHMi9wpmErsuOnYti0pqIGf4T4gy2v8m4DVRYNJwdD64Fa9_Mu4Q#VyAF2OIAGolCupUD.99