 Research comparing the joints of the forelegs to modern mammalian carnivores suggests that it waited in ambush and grappled with its prey, rather than hunting it down by pursuit like a modern cheetah.The genus "Megalictis" was first described by W. D. Matthew in 1907, and assigned to the family Mustelidae.Two similar genera discovered at the same time, "Aelurocyon" (Peterson, 1907) and "Paroligobunis" (Peterson, 1910) were identified as synonymous with "Megalictis" in 1996 though "Paroligobunis" was re-established as a separate genus in 1998.