Abstract Carnivoraformes is a clade comprised of members of the Carnivora, as well as the paraphyletic assemblage of stem taxa previously united under the “Miacidae”. Here we describe the earliest known African occurrence of a carnivoraform from the early Oligocene Zallah Incision locality in the Sirt Basin of central Libya. The new taxon is represented by three teeth (m1, P4, and dP3), all of which are carnassial loci diagnostic of the Carnivoraformes. Despite its meager anatomical representation, the new Libyan carnivoraform possesses numerous characters that distinguish it from contemporaneous African hyaenodonts, including the retention of a large m1 metaconid, an enlarged and transversely oriented P4 metastyle, and the absence of a metacone on dP3, among other features. The generally primitive nature of known tooth loci and the absence of clear synapomorphies with crown carnivorans suggest that the new carnivoraform may be a relatively basal member of the clade. If so, the new Libyan taxon would be the only known African occurrence of a basal carnivoraform.

中文翻译：

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来自利比亚渐新世早期的一种新食肉目：非洲食肉目已知最古老的记录

摘要 Carnivoraformes 是由食肉目成员组成的一个分支，也是先前统一在“Miacidae”下的茎类群的并系组合。在这里，我们描述了利比亚中部苏尔特盆地早渐新世 Zallah 切口地区已知最早的非洲食肉动物。新的分类单元由三颗牙齿（m1、P4 和 dP3）代表，所有这些牙齿都是食肉目动物的肉体位点。尽管在解剖学上的表现微薄，新的利比亚食肉动物具有许多区别于同时代非洲鬣狗的特征，包括保留大型 m1 后锥体、扩大和横向定向的 P4 后锥体，以及 dP3 上没有后锥体等特征. 已知牙齿位点的一般原始性质以及与冠食肉动物没有明显的突触关系表明新的食肉动物可能是进化枝的一个相对基础的成员。如果是这样，新的利比亚分类群将是唯一已知的非洲基础食肉目动物。