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Was this hyena a distant ancestor of today’s termite-eating aardwolf?

Posted May 9, 2022 by UCMP

An artist’s reconstruction of the Gansu hyena, perhaps a meat eater on its way to becoming an insect eater, like today’s aardwolf. (Image credit: Mick Ellison)

Curator and Assistant Professor Jack Tseng is co-author on a Vertebrata Palasiatica article describing a new genus and species of a small-bodied hyena from the Miocene of Gansu Province, China. The unique features identified in 12-14 million year fossil skulls shed new light on the ancestral history of modern termite-eating hyenas.

Was this hyena a distant ancestor of today’s termite-eating aardwolf?

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PaleoBios

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