Pachycrocuta

Taxobox
name = "Pachycrocuta"
status = fossil
fossil_range = Middle Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Mammalia
ordo = Carnivora
familia = Hyaenidae
genus = "†Pachycrocuta"
subdivision_ranks = Species
subdivision = "see text"

"Pachycrocuta" was a genus of prehistoric hyenas. The largest and most well-researched species was the giant hyaena "Pachycrocuta brevirostris", which stood about convert|100|cm|in|abbr=on|lk=on at the shoulder and may have weighed more than convert|113|kg|lb|abbr=on [Alan Turner: "Prehistoric Mammals". National Geographic, Firecrest Books Ltd. 2004.] — the size of a small lioness. This would make it the largest hyena to have ever lived. It lived between the Middle Pliocene and the Middle Pleistocene, about 3 million to 500.000 years ago. Fossil remains have been found in many localities of Eurasia and southern and eastern Africa. Most material consists of fragmented remains, usually of the skull, but there has been a cache of very comprehensive bone material unearthed at the famous Zhoukoudian locallity which probably represents the remains of animals which used these caves as lairs for many millennia [cite journal |last=Turner |first=Alan |authorlink= |coauthors=Antón, Mauricio |year=1996 |month= |title=The giant hyaena "Pachycrocuta brevirostris" (Mammalia, Carnivora, Hyaenidae) |journal=Geobios |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=455-468 |doi=10.1016/S0016-6995(96)80005-2 |url= |accessdate= |quote= ] .

It probably was a small-pack hunter of large animals (up to deer size and occasionally larger) and also scavenged for food. Possibly it preferentially did the latter because was a very heavyset animal not built for chasing prey over long distances. In this aspect it would have differed from the Spotted Hyena of today, which is a more nimble animal that, contrary to its image as a scavenger, usually kills its own food but often gets displaced by lions. Apparently it was ecologically close enough to the smaller (but still large) relative "Pliocrocuta perrieri"; they are never found as contemporary fossils in the same region.

Other proposed species, "P. robusta" and "P. pyrenaica", are less well researched; the former may simply be an exceptionally large European paleosubspecies of the Brown Hyena. Sometimes included in this genus (as "Pachycrocuta bellax") is the extinct giant striped hyaena, "Hyaena bellax".

References