Cat gap

The cat gap is a period in the fossil record of approximately 25 million to 18.5 million years ago in which there is an absence of cat-like species found in North America following the extinction of nimravids. The cause of the "cat gap" is disputed, but it may have been caused by changes in the climate (global cooling), changes in the habitat and ecosystem, the increasingly hypercarnivorous trend of the cat-like nimravids, volcanic activity, evolutionary changes in dentalmorphology of the Canidae species present in North America, or a periodicity of extinctions called van der Hammen cycles.