- Source: Fortunictis
Fortunictis is a fossil genus of metailurin machairodontine (saber-toothed) felid containing only one species, Fortunictis acerensis. Both the genus and species were described by paleontologist Joan Pons-Moyà in 1987 based on material from Casa del Acero in Spain, which is dated back to the Upper Miocene (approximately 8.7 to 5.332 million years ago).
Discovery and naming
Spanish palaeontologist Joan Pons-Moyà described the genus and species in 1987 based on fossils from Casa del Acero in Spain.
The generic name Fortunictis is a combination of fortuna and ictis meaning "wild cat". The specific epithet acerensis meaning "from Casa del Acera", the type locality.
Further material assigned to Fortunictis was discovered at Venta del Moro in 2004.
Description
Pons-Moyà described the species' diagnostic characteristics as: curved, highly laterally compressed upper canine teeth; elongated crown and no mesial cusp on the third premolar; high, transversely compressed cusps on the fourth premolar and lower; and a highly compressed first molar with a long talonid with a hypoconid cusp, but lacking the metaconid cusp.
A later study further noted that F. acerensis was a highly derived metailurin with a relatively slender mandible. It further described the upper canine teeth as more flattened, the upper and lower third premolars as very elongated, and both the third and fourth premolars as well as the first molar all narrower than the related Metailurus major.
Classification
Fortunictis was assigned to the tribe Metailurini in the subfamily Machairodontinae in its original description.
A cladogram of the Metailurini from a 2018 phylogenetic analysis: