Willem is a wildlife artist based in South Africa. He says "My aim is simply to express the beauty and wonder that is in Nature, and to heighten people's appreciation of plants, animals and the wilderness. Not everything I paint is African! Though I've never been there, I'm also fascinated by Asia and I've done paintings of Asian rhinos and birds as well. I may in future do some of European, Australian and American species too. I'm fascinated by wild things from all over the world! I mainly paint in watercolours. . . but actually many media including 'digital' paintings with the computer!"

Back in time we go again! Here's another ancient predator, but one that's more modern than old Vulpavus. This is Eomellivora wimani, which means 'Wiman's dawn honey-eater'. The name recalls that of the modern Honey Badger, Mellivora capensis, and indeed it looks like our dawn badger was indeed fairly closely related to it. Eomellivora was a very successful genus, existing from 11 to 5 million years ago, in the late Miocene, and included several species that lived in North America, Europe, Asia and probably also Africa. They were similar and related to Wolverines as well. Eomellivora was stoutly and powerfully built. Standing 50 cm/20" or so at the shoulder, and reaching a bodyweight of 35 kg/77 lbs or more, it was more massive than its modern counterparts, and a bit longer-legged. The coat pattern I reconstructed it with is of course my own invention, with hints of both modern honey badgers and wolverines, as well as other mustelids.

What's a mustelid? It's what the dawn badger was – a member of a family of modern carnivores, the Mustelidae. This is the largest and most diverse family of carnivorous mammals today, which includes badgers, wolverines, tayras, martens, sables, fishers, grisons, polecats, otters, weasels, stoats, ermines and minks. (I'm sure that you may not even have heard of some of those, a situation I hope to rectify in this column.) Skunks used to be included but recent researches found them to be different enough to warrant placement in their own family, though still close to the Mustelidae. The family is named for its largest genus, Mustela, the weasels and their close kin.

A family as diverse as the Mustelidae is sure to have had a rich evolutionary history, and we indeed know many amazing prehistoric species from some quite complete fossils. Very mustelid-like animals were around 40 million years ago, while the first ones directly ancestral to modern mustelids lived about 18 million years ago. Eomellivora is known, among other fossils, from some great skull material from Spain. It had strong jaw muscles and teeth, and would have fed on small to large prey animals. It was able to crush bones like a hyena, and likely would have made use of carrion when it could find it. It was likely a bit on the slow side, meaning that it might have been able to run well, but not quite as well as a lion or a cheetah. It would likely have used the element of surprise to catch its prey, wrestling it into submission. A feature shared by many of its modern relatives is the pungent scent glands, which it likely had, for marking its territory as well as for defending itself against larger carnivores. Its time, the Miocene period, was the high point of the Age of Mammals, with a diversity of large mammal species that was perhaps twice as great as it is now. The continents (except South America, Australia and Antarctica) were closer together, and animals could migrate between North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. The dawn badger would have lived in forest, woodland or savannah landscapes, and would have been an important hunter alongside both modern types like wolves, bears and great cats, and more ancient ones like bear-dogs and sabretooth cats.

Several other species of very large mustelids existed in the Miocene and the subsequent Pliocene. These included gigantic otters of the genera Sivaonyx and Enhydriodon, which might have exceeded 100 kg in bodyweight (compared to the 30-45 kg reached by modern giant and sea otters). Some of these giant otters might have been a bit more land-living than otters of today. Fully land-living giant mustelids, alongside Eomellivora, included the long-legged and rather dog-like Ekorus ekakeran of Africa, the robust wolverine-like Plesiogulo of Eurasia, Africa and North America, and the leopard-sized Megalictis ferox of North America. I hope to feature these soon in this column.

Sadly, like so many giants of ancient times, these huge mustelids all went extinct. Still, we're fortunate today in that we still have a large diversity of mustelids living all over the world. In time, given a chance, evolution might again produce a number of new giant types from these. Evolution goes on, as does time, and there might still be a billion years or more left for old Planet Earth before the sun becomes too unstable to sustain life on its surface.

Willem

15.02.21 Front Page

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