Ancient Marsupial Lion had a Unique Hunting Style

Posted on September 9, 2016

Thylacoleo carnifex was a jaguar-sized marsupial lion that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene era. It lived from about 2.5 million years ago to as recently as tens of thousands of years ago. The lion had a unique large claw resembling the dew claw of modern cats but much bigger.

Scientists from the Universities of Bristol and Málaga have proposed that the lion killed using this special claw. The claw had a bony sheath foisted on a mobile first digit (thumb). The scientists point to the elbow joints of Thylacoleo as evidence it hunted with the claw.

Christine Janis, a Marie Curie Research Fellow at the University of Bristol and author of the study, says in a statement, "If Thylacoleo had hunted like a lion using its forelimbs to manipulate its prey, then its elbow joint should have been lion-like. But, surprisingly, it a unique elbow-joint among living predatory mammals - one that suggested a great deal of rotational capacity of the hand, like an arboreal mammal, but also features not seen in living climbers, that would have stabilized the limb on the ground (suggesting that it was not simply a climber)."

The scientists say the ancient lion's unique elbow join combined with the giant dew claw would have enabled it to hunt and kill using the claw. They also note Thylacoleo had large incisors that were blunt and would have been better from gripping prey than for piercing flesh. They think Thylacoleo used its teeth to hold its prey while killing it with its huge dew claws.

A research paper on the findings was published here in the journal, Paleobiology.

ANIMALS