An international team of scientists led by Bastien Menkar from the Basel Museum of Natural History (Switzerland) has discovered a new species of fossil predators from the Amphicyon family - the so-called bear dogs.

Paleontologists have studied a jawbone that was recovered from marine sediments between 12.8 and 12 million years old in southwestern France, in the small commune of Salspies in the Pyrenees-Atlantiques department.

To classify the remains found as belonging to a previously unknown species, scientists allowed the teeth of a fossil animal.

Unlike already known species of bear-dogs, this individual had a unique fourth lower premolar tooth.

As the authors of the work note, this tooth is an important marker for determining the species of an animal.

  • Jawbone of tartarocion

  • © PEERJ

“You might think that such fragmentary material is not enough reason to introduce a new taxon (a group of organisms. -

RT

).

However, since we cannot determine which genus it most resembles, and given the originality of the morphology of the fourth lower premolar, we hypothesize that this specimen represents a new genus, which may or may not be confirmed by future finds. in a scientific article published in PeerJ by the authors of the study.

Scientists have named the new species "Tartarocion" in honor of Tartaro, the mighty one-eyed giant of Basque mythology.

The legend of Tartaro is also known in Béarn, the historical region of France where the find was made.

As the authors of the study note, it is very rare to find the remains of fossil land vertebrates that lived on the northern outskirts of the Pyrenees.

Therefore, the discovery of the Tartarocion jaw is of great importance for science and will help to study the history of European bear dogs.

Bear-dogs, or amphicyons, are a family of ancient carnivores, which in their structure resembled a cross between canids and bears.

These animals lived on Earth about 36 million years ago, the last members of the family became extinct about 7.5 million years ago.

It is assumed that they appeared in North America, from where they spread across the continent and beyond.

The first amphicyons were small animals, but as the evolution progressed, the animals of the family became larger and larger.

The maximum mass that bear dogs reached in the history of their existence was about 320 kg.

Scientists note that the weight of an open tartarocion could reach 200 kg. 

The remains of representatives of the bear-dog family were also found on the territory of modern Russia - for example, in the North Caucasus.