Tobi Ijalana
The ancient giant lion has enormous fangs and it roamed the Kenyan savannah more than 20 million years ago, researchers said on Thursday, April 18,2019.
Part of its jaw, skull and other bones had been stored away in the National Museum of Kenya, forgotten for decades earlier by scientists looking for evidence of ancient apes at the Meswa Bridge archaeology site.
It was found by Nancy Stevens and Matthew Borths, from Ohio University, and is one of the largest ever meat-eating mammals.
The creature, named Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, got its name from Swahili meaning “Big African Lion” is said to be bigger than a saber toothed tiger and a polar bear.
Simbakubwa kutokaafrika had a skull as large as a rhinoceros and enormous piercing canine teeth
The lion would have weighed up to 1,500 kilogrammes and could have preyed upon the elephant-like creatures that lived there at that time.
“Based on its massive teeth, Simbakubwa was a specialised hyper-carnivore that was significantly larger than the modern lion and possibly larger than a polar bear,” said Matthew Borths, from Duke University, who co-led the research with Ohio University.
The team behind the study, published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, said Simbakubwa lived in what is modern-day Kenya around 23 million years ago, a key period in the evolution of carnivorous mammals.
