Take a polar bear. Take a lion. Mash them together and chuck them in a time machine, sending them back 22 million years to what’s now Kenya and you’ve got the massive carnivore Simbakubwa kutokaafrika. The enormous bitey mammal was identified only after researchers rediscovered partial fossils of it, forgotten in the backroom of a museum.

To be clear, Simbakubwa is neither a bear nor a member of the extended feline family, even though its name is Swahili for “big lion.” Instead, the mas