Named By: | Pilgrim in 1910 |
Time Period: | Middle Miocene-Late Miocene |
Location: | China, India, Kenya and Pakistan |
Size: | Unknown |
Diet: | Carnivore |
Fossil(s): | Several specimens but usually of just the skull, teeth and partial mandibles. Elements of post cranial remains have also been attributed to the genus |
Classification: | | Chordata | Mammalia | Creodonta | Hyaenodontidae | |
Dissopsalis is a genus of extinct predatory mammals of the family Hyaenodontidae. The older species, D. pyroclasticus, lived in Kenya during the middle Miocene, while the type species, D. carnifex, ranged from, Pakistan, India to China during the middle to late Miocene (Barry, 1988).
Dissopsalis is the last known hyaenodontid genus. It lived alongside its relative Hyaenodon weilini, a member of the very successful genus Hyaenodon, during the Miocene in China, and survived to the end of the Miocene, whereas H. weilini did not.