A gigantic new species of mammal with enormous fangs has been identified in Kenya, after its fossils were found tucked away in a museum drawer, according to news reports.
The discovery of the extinct mammal, which researchers believe roamed the Earth about 22 million years ago, was revealed in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology this week, .
The roughly 3,300-pound animal, named Simbakubwa kutokaafrika — “big African lion” in Swahili — but it’s not a large cat after all, the magazine reported.
It’s actually the oldest known member of a group of extinct mammals known as hyaenodonts, given the name because their teeth resemble those of hyenas. But these meat-eating behemoths are not related to hyenas either, according to the report.
In 2013, Paleontologist Matthew Borths of Duke University discovered the unidentified fossils at the Narobi National Museum in a cabinet within the “hyenas” collection.
The mammal’s jaw, skull, teeth and other bones were initially excavated between 1978 and 1980 at a western Kenya site known as Meswa Bridge, according to the report.
Borths, along with Ohio University paleontologist and National Geographic grantee Nancy Stevens, began investigating the perplexing discovery in 2017.
“Based on its massive teeth, Simbakubwa was a specialized hyper-carnivore that was significantly larger than the modern lion and possibly larger than a polar bear,” .
Jack Tseng, an evolutionary biologist and vertebrate paleontologist at the University at Buffalo, called the discovery and subsequent research “very impressive.”
“Any time you have a new record of something this large in the fauna and ecological food web, it makes you reconsider exactly what the interactions were like between predator and prey,” he told National Geographic.