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Grad student finds a new saber-toothed species, in a museum, University of Oregon, Department of Earth sciences Abstract The open access paper is: Barrett, P.Z., 2021. The largest hoplophonine and a complex new hypothesis of nimravid evolution. Scientific reports, 11(1), pp.1-9. Yours, Paul H.

Dinaelurus was a genus of nimravid that lived during the Eocene-Oligocene epochs. Its skull was apparently very cheetah-like, with a short face and enlarged nasal passages. Some have hypothesized that due to this, like the cheetah, it was a cursorial predator. I haven't found any evidence that anything below the neck has been found, yet people are starting to say these creatures had gracile skeletons. Image searches turn up a drawing of a skull and nothing else very useful. Various sites around the 'net are claiming that these catlike predators had long limbs like cheetahs and were relatively "gracile." Where are they getting this information? The only published literature I can find talking about the body structure of this genus just tends to mention Dinaelurus along with Dinictis as more gracile nimravids. Of course we have lots of nice examples of complete Dinictis skeletons, but what about Dinaelurus? If there's a more complete Dinaelurus crassus skeleton than what we know about hiding in some museum or university somewhere, I would love to see it, but I can't find anything describing an actual specimen! I've found only two legit published sources mentioning the skeletal structure of Dinaelurus, both of which tie it to Dinictis: Mentioned along with Dinictis as being in the same clade in a book by Harold N Bryant published in 1996. This is the book cited by Wikipedia when it states that Dinaelurus had a gracile skeleton. Also, mention is made in this 2008 paper. I can't access this full article but it mentions Dinaelurus and Dinictis as having gracile forms. In Google Scholar this is what shows up: "Scimitar-toothed forms, in contrast, exhibit shorter canines that are normally coarsely serrated, and long, gracile limbs. ... Dinaelurus (42) and Nimravus (43) score positively on this axis and occupy pantherine/scimitar-tooth morphospace." I know there are plenty of users on this forum with much more extensive knowledge regarding nimravids than I have. Maybe someone has at least seen a Dinaelurus skeleton in a museum collection. Can anyone shed some light on this?