Gatto preistorico

The smallest cat in the world could be lived 300 thousand years ago in China: she was holding in one hand

In China a team of paleontologists found the remains of the smaller feline ever found. Specifically, a fossil fragment of jaw with two teeth was found, belonging to a feline dating back to the late middle Pleistocene, about 300,000 years ago. The fragment made it possible to describe a new species although now extinct, the Prionailurus Kurteni, The smallest feline known to date . He was found in the Hualongdong cave, in the Chinese province of Anhui, not far from the southern area of ​​the Yangtze river (the Azzurro river). This archaeological site is quite well known and full of finds: over the years it has already returned important human fossils And animals dated about 300,000 years.

The finding of the smallest cat ever in the cave in China

The team of researchers belonging to the Institute of Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Paleobiology Department of the Swedish Museum of Natural History and the Faculty of Forestry Sciences of Harbin in China, managed to describe the new species starting from fragment of jaw And from the two teeth (the fourth premolar P4 and the first molar M1) found during the excavations. Through a series of laboratory measurements, comparing feline jaws, both fossil and living, it was possible to estimate that the specimen measured between 35 and 50 cm in length and it was so small that it could be kept almost on palm of one hand. Comparing these parameters with those of one ours domestic cat (Felis Catus), which measures between 46 and 55 cm, tail excluded and weighs between 3 and 5 kg, it is immediately noticeable how the prehistoric cat was really very small.

Smaller cat in the world
Felis Nigripes is one of the smallest cats in the world

The small prehistoric cat was perhaps even more slender than rusty cat (Prionailurus Rubiginosus), a living and rather rare Asian feline that contend for the Black feet cat (Felis Nigripes) the primacy of smaller feline in the world. The latter in fact measures between 36 and 52 cm excluding the tail e weighs between 1.5 kg and 2.5 kg.

The new fossil species was given the name of Prionailurus kurteni In honor of the Finnish paleontologist Björn Kurtén, a profound connoisseur of the evolution of felines. Genre Prionailurus It has 5 living species distributed in the forests of the South East Asia. In particular, the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis), a small wild cat, was probably the first kind of tame of tame in China about 5,000 years ago.

Because the discovery of the feline “Prionailurus Kurteni” is important

South-eastern Asia and southern China are “hotspot” of the diversity of felines, but still remain many uncertainties about their evolutionary history. Finding fossil finds of felines well preserved in these areas is quite complicated because theirs small and fragile skeleton In humid forest environments it deteriorates very easily.

This discovery will therefore allow to add an important piece to the reconstruction of the evolutionary history of felines And to better understand the relationships between man and other species in that prehistoric period. In the specific case, it is believed that this cat had already lived in the vicinity of man but not in direct relationship. He probably hunted rats and mice in the cave in a sort of indirect coexistence.