Cool Video!

Alan Root had a remarkable encounter with what was perhaps the World's rarest carnivore. His films are always quite good, but here, he struck diamonds!! He filmed a highly elusive aquatic genet, or Osbornictis piscivora. It is the rarest carnivore on Earth. In the 80s, it was believed there were no more than 18 individuals in the wild, and no captive animals remain. Nobody knows how many are in the wild now, which is why it is so amazing he was able to capture this footage of a genet on the hunt.

Aquatic genets are rather unique. They hate the water, but that is where they get all their prey from. If they can survive longer, it wouldn't be too big of a leap for these animals to develop fully-aquatic lifestyles. Very few feliformes actually like the water. In fact the only feliformes that are to any degree aquatic are in the mongoose and civet family (Viverridae). All others of their kind are land-based. This is the animal that gave me the idea of a fully-aquatic viverrid of the late Metazoic. I called the animal Thalassogenetta (formerly Hydrogenetta), of the Atlantic. It is a 50-foot long, very powerful animal with a long, oar-shaped tail, and limbs that more resembles flippers. The mouth is huge and the teeth are made for crushing and are very sharp, powered by jaws more powerful than those of a crocodile. Their prey consists of fish, cephalopods, crabs, smaller aquatic prosimians like Oreolemur and Rhynchocebus, and especially sea turtles. But for now, the aquatic genet feeds on fish and frogs.

If you'd like to see Thalassogenetta, you can visit their page on my site HERE. Thalassogenetta also will have a similar cousin on the Pacific side of their range, Oceictis. This animal will be a lot more advanced than Thalassogenetta, all limbs will be reduced to flippers, and the tail will be flattened sideways, giving them a side-to-side swimming motion, much like eels.