What was the Messel Pit's apex predator?

[Gelatinous squid]

Now that we know it wasn't Gastornis, where does that leave the top predator niche in the area?

[MeargleSchmeargl]

Ambulocetus...? 

 

 

If not Gastornis, I haven't a clue.

 

Edit: Actually, it was probably the colonies of giant ants (Titanomyrma gigantea) as I've heard they ate anything that was unfourtunate enough to be swarmed. A grisly fate indeed 

[LordTrilobite]

There were a bunch of crocs in the Messel fauna.

[siteseer]

On 8/3/2018 at 2:12 PM, LordTrilobite said:

There were a bunch of crocs in the Messel fauna.

 

Since Messel was a lake environment during a time when western Europe was broken up into several islands and when the region enjoyed a tropical climate, various crocodiles may have been the apex predators of the area.  During the Early Eocene, the largest mammalian herbivore in Europe was not much larger than a large dog/wolf (larger herbivores did exist in North American and Asia).  The largest carnivores were about the size of a cat or small dog.though not a member of a family we know today.   They were miacids which were ancesral to cats, dogs, and bears.  

 

The Messel site is about one million years younger than the end of the Early Eocene so mammal group size was about the same - perhaps slightly larger.   I should add that hyaenodonts have been found at the Messel site.   They would become one of the major predator groups of the Oligocene, but in the Middle Eocene, they were small omnivorous forms.