Bastetodon (meaning "Bastet tooth") is an extinct genus of carnivorous hyaenodont mammals from the Early Oligocene Jebel Qatrani Formation of Egypt. The genus contains single species, B. syrtos, which was originally assigned to the genus "Pterodon".
Discovery and naming.
In 1999, paleontologist Patricia A. Holroyd described a partial right maxilla from 'Quarry M' of the Jebel Qatrani Formation near the Faiyum Oasis of Egypt as belonging to a new species of "Pterodon", "P. syrtos". The specific name, "syrtos", is a Greek word meaning "carried along by a stream", referencing the preservation of the holotype in a point bar depositional environment.
In 2025, Al-Ashqar et al. revised the record of African species assigned to "Pterodon", a historic wastebasket taxon. As in previous analyses, they observed that the species referred to this genus form a polyphyletic assemblage. Based on a more recently-collected complete skull from 'Quarry I', they established a new genus, "Bastetodon", for ""P." "syrtos". The generic name combines a reference to Bastet—a cat-headed goddess from Ancient Egyptian mythology associated with protection, pleasure, and good health—with the Greek suffix "-odon"", meaning "tooth". The authors' intended translation is "teeth like the cat-headed goddess".
Classification.
Using an expanded matrix from previous phylogenetic analyses, Al-Ashqar et al. recovered "P." "syrtos" as the sister taxon to the smaller and roughly coeval "Falcatodon" within the hyaenodontan subfamily Hyainailourinae. Their results are displayed in the cladogram below: