Palaeogale
Palaeogale is an extinct genus of carnivorous mammal known from the Late Eocene, Oligocene, and Early Miocene of North America, Europe, and Eastern Asia. A small carnivore often associated with the mustelids, Palaeogale might have been similar to living genets, civets, and linsangs.
Time range
The ancestry of Palaeogale remains enigmatic. The genus appears in Europe 32 Ma, after the Grande Coupure, but 35-36 Ma-old specimens from Pipestone Springs, Montana, are the oldest known. Palaeogale survived until the late Early Miocene of Europe and the early Early Miocene of East Asia.noted that the Palaeogale specimens found in Mongolia are the most plesiomorphic and that the genus probably originated there and migrated to Europe and North America.
Anatomy
Palaeogale was the size of a small mustelid but had a hypercarnivorous dentition and its taxonomic position remains enigmatic. Its dental morphology includes both mustelid and feliform features, and Palaeogale is typically placed in Carnivora incertae sedis.The body mass of Palaeogale sectoria, one of the smallest species, has been estimated to much less than a kilo based on teeth sizes. It was probably semifossorial. P. sanguinarius is slightly larger than P. dorothiae and probably equivalent in age.
Taxonomic history
When named the genus Palaeogale and two species, he only gave a very vague description of these taxa. described a related species, Mustela minuta, which thought identical and named Palaeogale minuta, a name that has remained accepted for the type species.wrote that when described the North American species Bunaelurus lagophagus, he distinguished the genus from the European Plesiogale based on differences in M2. Simpson, however, thought this molar was "very closely similar" in both genera and synonymized Cope's genus with Palaeogale.
described a skull which he referred to Cope's genus "Bunaelurus". The skull was found without lower jaws, but Matthew argued that the correspondence in horizon and size made the "identification reasonably safe." He nevertheless described it as a "Palaeogale with a minute second molar still retained."
| Species | Time span | Size | Dental morphology |
| P. sectoria | Late Eocene, Early Oligocene | Medium | M2 and p1 retained |
| P. minuta | Late Oligocene, Early Miocene | Smallest | M2 and p1 lost |
| P. hyaenoides | Miocene | Medium | |
| P. dorothiae | Late Oligocene, Early Miocene | Largest |
synonymized the then described Palaeogale species from Europe and North America into four taxa based on age occurrence, size difference, presence of M2, and loss of p1. Two species from Mongolia described by were synonymized by who argued that the smaller individuals most likely were female and the larger male members of the same species, like in modern mustelids.
created the infraorder Aeluroida to accommodate Palaeogale, Ictidopappus, and Feloidea and argued that these taxa share some derived dental features not present in other feliforms, and retain some primitive dental features that have been modified in other feliforms. Flynn & Galiano, however, placed Ictidopappus as incertae sedis within this infraorder, and pointed out that the grouping of Palaeogale and the Viverravidae in the superfamily Viverravoidea was a hypothetical arrangement.
accepted Palaeogale as closely related to the family Viverravidae but, because it doesn't share any "unambiguous synapomorphies with either Feliforma or Caniforma", should be considered incertae sedis within Carnivora