''Eomellivora'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric

mustelid The Mustelidae (; from Latin ''mustela'', weasel) are a family of carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks and wolverines, among others. Mustelids () are a diverse group and form the largest family ...

s, closely related to the

honey badger The honey badger (''Mellivora capensis''), also known as the ratel ( or ), is a mammal widely distributed in Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Because of its wide range and occurrence in a variety of habitats, it is liste ...

, known from

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...

and North America, and tentatively

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. It was one of the biggest mustelids ever known, bigger and more hypercarnivorous than the modern

wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscul ...

. ''Eomellivora'' was long thought to contain only one species, ''E. wimani'', with Wolsan and Semenov (1996) treating ''E. piveteaui'' as a younger subspecies of ''E. wimani'', but new remains of ''E. piveteaui'' described in 2015 allowed for recognition of ''E. piveteaui'' as distinct from ''E. wimani'', but also treatment of ''E. ursogulo'' (Orlov, 1948) and ''E. hungarica'' Kretzoi, 1942 from the eastern Paratethys region. The placement of the African species ''Eomellivora tugenensis'' in ''Eomellivora'' is tentative.

Taxonomy

The genus ''Hadrictis'' Pia, 1939, described from a skull found in late Miocene deposits in Austria, is a synonym of ''Eomellivora''.Valenciano, Alberto, Abella, Juan, Göhlich, Ursula B., Álvarez-Sierra, M. Ángeles, and Morales, Jorge, 2017. Re-evaluation of the very large Eomellivora fricki (Pia, 1939) (Carnivora, Mustelidae, Mellivorinae) from the Late Miocene of Austria. Palaeontologia Electronica 20.1.17A: 1-22. https://doi.org/10.26879/691 palaeo-electronica.org/content/2017/1830-the-large-eomellivora-fricki

References

Miocene carnivorans Prehistoric mustelids Fossil taxa described in 1924 Prehistoric carnivoran genera {{paleo-carnivora-stub