Falcatodon ("curved tooth") is an extinct genus of hyainailourid hyaenodonts of the subfamily Hyainailourinae, from the Early Oligocene (Rupelian) of the Faiyum Oasis depression in Egypt.
Falcatodon ("curved tooth") is an extinct genus of hyainailourid hyaenodonts of the subfamily Hyainailourinae, from the Early Oligocene (Rupelian) of the Faiyum Oasis depression in Egypt.
==Description== Morales and Pickford (2017, p. 344) diagnose Falcatodon as follows: "Medium sized Hyainailourinae, differing from Metapterodon by the reduction of the protocone in the upper molars (M1 – M2), which is located in a very anterior position. It differs from Hyainailouros by the more sectorial morphology of the upper molars, with more advanced fusion of the paracone-metacone with, nevertheless, a groove separating the cusps visible in the M1. Lower molars sectorial with reduced talonid and without a metaconid. It differs from Isohyaenodon, Sectisodon and Exiguodon, by the lesser reduction of the protocone in the upper molars which, above all, retain a stretched out subtriangular occlusal outline."
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).