Limnocyonid

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An extinct early carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Limnocyonidae, known from Paleocene and Eocene fossils
2. A prehistoric meat-eating mammal of the family Limnocyonidae that lived in North America during the early Cenozoic era
3. Any member of the extinct family Limnocyonidae, a group of primitive predatory mammals found in early Tertiary fossil beds

Etymology: Limnocyonid is a name for an extinct family of early meat-eating mammals, and the name is built from Greek pieces that describe the animals' supposed habits and home. "Limno-" comes from Greek "limnē," meaning marsh or lake, and "-cyon" comes from "kyōn," meaning dog. Together they suggest a "marsh dog," a reference to the wetland environments where the fossils were found. The "-id" ending is the standard zoological suffix marking a family, so the whole word simply means a member of that family. The genus at the heart of the family, Limnocyon, was named by the American paleontologist Joseph Leidy, who worked on fossils from the Eocene period. Limnocyonids belonged to the group of early mammals sometimes called creodonts, and they lived roughly 55 to 40 million years ago, after the dinosaurs had disappeared. Their teeth were adapted for slicing flesh, which is why they are described as carnivorous even though they were not closely related to modern dogs or cats.