Yoshi (Metailurus) minor
Late Miocene
Gansu Province, China

Mammal, cat, Felidae, felid, sabercat, sabertooth. Association.

Rare and beautiful cheetah-like sabercat. 125mm (5 inch) skull on 250mm (9.8 inch) matrix full of additional bones and a jaw section of a ruminant. Spectacular display. No repair or restoration far as we can tell.

Although Yoshi is often referred to as a cheetah, it is classified among the sabercats in the subfamily, Machairodontinae. True cheetahs belong to the subfamily, Felinae.

Yoshi is remarkably cheetah-like in its more lightly-built skeleton, smaller skull, and its shorter, more rounded-based canines but this is a case of convergence, an organism approaching the form of another in general and/or in some anatomical details under similar environmental conditions. In fact, it was the cheetah that converged on the form of Yoshi because the cheetah evolved during the Pliocene, a few million years after the appearance of Yoshi.

This is a great display piece for any mammal collector. Definitely a flashy jumble of sabercat and herbivore (possibly a giraffe jaw section) remains for anyone who’s into unique fossil associations.

And yes, apparently this sabercat was reassigned to the genus Yoshi in 2014.
See: Genus Yoshi