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Description
Although the kochu is the last nimravid in the known world, it’s quite common: this predator is around the size of a clouded leopard and leads a similar arboreal life. They are comfortable in water, which has served them well in their expansion: in the Crescent jungles and many islands in the inland sea, these small predators can be found in relative abundance. There is also a small population in Pakardia, although leopards and small cats have reduced their population. They generally like mangroves and are found in a lot of estuaries, leaping on prey from trees and retreating back up to the branches before crocodiles, large fish, and other aquatic predators can catch them.

The big cats we are familiar with are not the first mammal predators with this bodyplan to find their way to success in the shadow of Kaimeran dinosaurs. The first were the nimravids, catlike carnivorans famous for their saber teeth and generally catlike appearance, even though hyenas and civets are actually closer to cats than cats are to nimravids. The top predators on Earth at this time were hyaenodonts and entelodonts. The large and aggressive members of each clade weren’t able to compete in the dinosaur-dominated ecosystems, but these two and the small nimravids all established themselves as mesopredators in wetlands, prairies, and forests respectively. Nimravids are only survived in the known world by the kochu, a small arboreal predator that lives much like Earth’s ocelot. Their diversity remains much higher on the Eastern continent, with cursorial, arboreal, and even aquatic representatives. The descendants of animals harvested during the Oligocene, and their subsequent adaptive radiations on the Eastern continent, will be the subject of my next sponsored video!

Description
Although the kochu is the last nimravid in the known world, it’s quite common: this predator is around the size of a clouded leopard and leads a similar arboreal life. They are comfortable in water, which has served them well in their expansion: in the Crescent jungles and many islands in the inland sea, these small predators can be found in relative abundance. There is also a small population in Pakardia, although leopards and small cats have reduced their population. They generally like mangroves and are found in a lot of estuaries, leaping on prey from trees and retreating back up to the branches before crocodiles, large fish, and other aquatic predators can catch them.

The big cats we are familiar with are not the first mammal predators with this bodyplan to find their way to success in the shadow of Kaimeran dinosaurs. The first were the nimravids, catlike carnivorans famous for their saber teeth and generally catlike appearance, even though hyenas and civets are actually closer to cats than cats are to nimravids. The top predators on Earth at this time were hyaenodonts and entelodonts. The large and aggressive members of each clade weren’t able to compete in the dinosaur-dominated ecosystems, but these two and the small nimravids all established themselves as mesopredators in wetlands, prairies, and forests respectively. Nimravids are only survived in the known world by the kochu, a small arboreal predator that lives much like Earth’s ocelot. Their diversity remains much higher on the Eastern continent, with cursorial, arboreal, and even aquatic representatives. The descendants of animals harvested during the Oligocene, and their subsequent adaptive radiations on the Eastern continent, will be the subject of my next sponsored video!