What is "hyaenodon"

Hyaenodon (" hyena-tooth") is the type genus of Hyaenodontidae, a group of extinct carnivorous fossil mammals from Eurasia, North America and Africa, with species existing temporally from the Eocene until the middle Miocene, existing for approximately . The various species of Hyaenodon competed with each other and with other hyaenodont genera (including Sinopa, Dissopsalis and Hyainailouros), and played important roles as predators in ecological communities as late as the Miocene in Africa and Asia. Species of Hyaenodon have been shown to have successfully preyed on other large carnivores of their time, including a "false saber-tooth cat", Dinictis by analysis of tooth puncture marks on a fossil Dinictis skull in North Dakota .