Pachyaena

Pachyaena
Pachyaena gigantea jaws
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Mesonychia
Family: Mesonychidae
Genus: Pachyaena
Cope, 1874
Type species
Pachyaena ossifraga
Cope, 1874
Other species
  • P. gigantea
  • P. intermedia
  • P. nemegetica
  • P. gracilis

Pachyaena (literally, "thick hyena") was a genus of heavily built, relatively short-legged mesonychids. Mesonychids were part of the now extinct order known as Mesonychia, a group mammalian predators that evolved before modern ungulates or carnivorans. Despite this, mesonychians are found to have combined characteristics of both carnivorans and ungulates. The genus likely originated from Asia and dispersed to Europe, and from there to North America across a land bridge in what is now the North Atlantic ocean. Pachyaena would later be replaced by Dissacus in Europe.