Ictitherium

Ictitherium is an extinct genus belonging to the family Hyaenidae and the subfamily Ictitheriinae erected by Trouessart in 1897. Ictitherium lived throughout Eurasia during the Late Miocene.

Description

Ictitherium were around long, and looked more like civets than modern hyenas, possessing a long body with short legs and a possibly short tail.

It is speculated that I. viverrinum was an opportunistic feeder, and that it ate plants as well as medium-small mammals and birds. It would have consumed bone, as its teeth were much more suited for osteophagy than more basal hyaenids because its Hunter-Schreger bands were zigzag throughout the enamel with the exception of the cervix. I. viverrinum occupied a similar ecological niche as and competed with Hyaenictitherium wongii. Ictitherium was a very successful and abundant genus, with multiple fossils often being found at a single site.