A cousin from a long time ago

A discovery has been made using Google Earth that sheds some light on humans of today- well in my view.

While viewing Brazil's dense vegetation on Google Earth searching for possible dig sites, an open area was found, which led a team to go to this patch and search for fossils, as one does.
Juan Cisneros and Cesar Schultz were in luck and discovered a scull of what has been identified as The Pampas killer. (or Pampaphoneus Biccai for those who are interested.)
Now, Pampas is simply means the open plains found in South America and thus the name is not that creative but it is descriptive of the long dead carnivore.
Of course, as in the case where a whole skeleton is not unearthed, some sleuth work, some research, some comparing with existing records and I am sure, a bit of guess work is used to determine the look and create a profile of our long lost cousin. This takes time of course and that is why we are only learning of the 2008 discovery now.

Based on the above and using records found in South Africa (it's close relative Australosydon was discovered in South Africa) it was established that these mammal like creatures probably moved in herds or packs and were fierce hunters. Roughly the size of a leopard and it is thought were cold blooded. It is presumed to have lived some 265 million years ago- long before the Dinosaurs ruled the Earth. As such it is also one of the earliest land-living predators and thus, makes it one of our earliest relatives. (See the link now in some of our living relatives)
The brains on the project, are of the opinion that our little long lost cousin used to tear the flesh from it's prey, probably while it was still alive, once it had downed it. Not very clinical.

Scientists are comparing Therapsids found accross South America, South Africa, China and Russia to attempt to plot the migration of land-living animals across Pangaea (when all the land mass was one happy place).