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- A new species of giant meat-eating mammal has been identified from fossil fragments found in a drawer of Nairobi National Museum, Kenya. The gigantic carnivore has been dubbed as Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, meaning “big African Lion” in Swahili. The findings of the research has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
- According to scientists, the creature is one of the biggest ever meat-eating mammals. The creature has been categorized as part of an extinct group of mammals called hyaenodonts.
- The animal lived around 22 million years ago in the eastern African ecosystems. According to scientist, the creature would have weighed up to 1,500 kgs and could have preyed upon the elephant-like creatures that lived there at the time. Scientists further added that Simbakubwa is not closely related to big cats or any other mammalian carnivore alive today.
- The identification of the creature highlights the significance of museum collections for understanding evolutionary history.
