Palaeomephitis steinheimensis

Palaeomephitis steinheimensis is an extinct species of musteloid, possibly a mephitid or skunk, from the Miocene epoch of Europe. Jäger described it in 1839 from a well-preserved cranium found at Steinheim am Albuch in southern Germany. Later authors took it for a viverrid or a leptarctine mustelid, until Wolsan in 1999 placed it among the skunks on the evidence of an extended epitympanic recess in the middle ear. Geraads and Spassov in 2016 were uncertain it really had that recess, because that part of the skull is imperfectly preserved, and for that reason and others they thought its skunk affinity doubtful. In its traditional skunk classification it stands close to the two living stink badgers of the genus Mydaus and the extinct Promephitis, a clade sister to all other skunks.