Africa's largest carnivore mammal canine-toothed banana

when paleontologists unearthed the bones of Africa's largest carnivore in the early 1980s, they didn't know what they had found. There are so many other fossils scattered at the excavation site on the Meswa Bridge in western Kenya that these huge bones are just one item that needs to be cataloged. So scientists put them in a drawer at the National Museum in Nairobi, where they have been preserved for nearly 40 years.
then a new team of researchers appeared. They accidentally opened the drawer and found "banana-sized canine teeth," said Matt Borths, a carnivore palaeontologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. These teeth (the molars are 6 cm long and the canine teeth are 10 cm long) are the beginning. Linked to them are a huge jaw and other bone fragments dating back 23 million years.
researchers report in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology that they estimate the 1.2-meter-tall animal (pictured) weighs 1,500 kilograms, is 2.4 meters long from nose to tail and is longer than a polar bear and is one of the largest carnivores on record.
this top predator is named Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, which means "big lion from Africa" in Swahili and plays a similar role to today's lions in the region's ecosystem. The lion's ancestors did not reach Africa until 3.7 million years later. Prior to this, Simbakubwa was one of the only land predators in Africa and belonged to a large extinct mammal called hyaenodonts. In addition, modern lions have only one pair of teeth dedicated to cutting meat on either side of their jaws, while Simbakubwa has three, making it a terrible enemy.
researchers say Simbakubwa's teeth are almost primitive, which helps them figure out its relationship with other large carnivores in the family. But researchers say much remains to be learned about the causes of the extinction of these giant predators and the risks they face in reflecting modern predators. (Source: Lu Yi, China Science Journal)
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