Ictitherium

Ictitherium were mid-sized gracile hyenas around 1.2 metres (4 ft) long. Their morphology is convergent with that of the maned wolf, with long, stilt-like gracile legs that likely helped it stride through the tall grass of the savannas and grasslands it inhabited.^{[3] [citation needed]}

It is speculated that I. viverrinum was an opportunistic feeder,^[4] and that it ate plants as well as medium-small mammals and birds.^[5] It would have consumed bone, as its teeth were much more suited for osteophagy than more basal hyaenids because its Hunter-Schreger bands (HSBs) were zigzag throughout the enamel with the exception of the cervix.^[6] I. viverrinum occupied a similar ecological niche as and competed with Hyaenictitherium wongii.^[7] Ictitherium was a very successful and abundant genus, with multiple fossils often being found at a single site.^[8] Based on studies of its limb morphology, it likely stalked through tall grass on its stilt-like legs, searching for prey before pouncing much like the modern maned wolf.^[3]