Quercylurus is an extinct genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of the family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 Nimravidae

Nimravidae

The Nimravidae, sometimes known as false saber-toothed cats, are an extinct family of mammalian carnivores belonging to the suborder Feliformia and endemic to North America, Europe, and Asia living from the Eocene through the Miocene epochs , existing for approximately .-Morphology:Although some...

, subfamily Nimravinae. Like Pogonodon

Pogonodon

Pogonodon is an extinct genus of the family Nimravidae, subfamily Nimravinae endemic to North America and Eurasia during the Eocene-Miocene epochs , existing for approximately ..-Taxonomy:Pogonodon was named by Cope...

and Nimravus

Nimravus

Nimravus is an extinct genus of the family Nimravidae, subfamily Nimravinae endemic to North America during the Oligocene epoch , existing for approximately .-Taxonomy:...

, it lived during the Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...

 epoch (30.8mya).

Quercylurus is part of a family of "false sabre-tooths". It was possibly the largest nimravid ever known. Quercylurus was the same size as a today's brown bear

Brown Bear

The brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.There are several recognized...

 and was scansorial. It was very muscular, walked on plantigrade (flat-footed). There is only one known specimen of this genus - Quercylurus major.

Taxonomy

Quercylurus was named by Ginsburg (1979). It was assigned to Felidae by Carroll (1988).