Saber-toothed cat

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Close-up view of the head of Smilodon on display at the American History Museum.

The terms sabre-toothed cat, sabretooth, and sabre-toothed tiger describe numerous species, mainly in the families Felidae (subfamily Machairodontinae), Barbourofelidae, and Nimravidae, but also including two marsupial families, that lived during various parts of the Cenozoic Era and evolved their sabre-toothed characteristics entirely independently. They are most known for having maxillary canines which were, in some species, up to 50 cm long and extended down from the mouth even when the mouth was closed. Sabre-toothed cats were generally more robust than today's cats and were quite bear-like in build. They were believed to be excellent hunters and hunted animals such as sloths, mammoths, and other large prey. Evidence from the numbers found at the La Brea Tar Pits suggests that Smilodon, like modern lions, was a social carnivore.^[1]

Sabre-tooth genera

Sabre-tooth evolutionary tree

All sabre-tooth mammals lived between 33.7 million and 9,000 years ago, but the evolutionary lines that led to the various sabre-tooth genera started to diverge much earlier. It is thus a polyphyletic grouping.

The lineage that led to Thylacosmilus was the first to split off, in the late Cretaceous. It is a marsupial, and thus more closely related to kangaroos and opossums than the felines. The creodonts diverged next, and then the nimravids, before the blossoming of the truly feline sabre-tooths.

• Class Mammalia
  • Subclass Marsupialia (diverged ?, in the Cretaceous)
    • Order †Sparassodonta (an extinct group of marsupial carnivores)
      • Family †Borhyaenidae
      • Family †Thylacosmilidae
        • †Thylacosmilus
  • Subclass Placentalia
    • Order †Creodonta (diverged ?, in the Paleocene)
      • Family †Hyaenodontidae
        • †Hyaenodon
        • †Boualitomus
        • †Laekitherium
        • †Metapterodon
        • †Triacodon
        • †Parvagula
        • †Machaeroides
    • Order Carnivora
      • Family †Nimravidae (diverged from the feliforms 48–55 Ma BP, in the late Eocene)
        • Subfamily †Nimravinae (Dinictis)
        • Subfamily †Hoplophoninae
      • Suborder Feliformia ('cat-like' carnivores)
        • Family †Barbourofelidae (sister taxa to Felidae)
        • Family Felidae (true cats)
          • Subfamily †Machairodontinae (diverged ?, in the ?)
            • Tribe †Homotheriini
              • †Homotherium
              • †Machairodus
              • †Xenosmilus
            • Tribe †Metailurini
              • †Dinofelis
              • †Metailurus
            • Tribe †Smilodontini
              • †Megantereon
              • †Paramachairodus
              • †Smilodon

Literature

• D. Mol / W. v. Logchem / K. v. Hooijdonk / R. Bakker: The Saber-Toothed Cat, DrukWare, Norg 2008, ISBN 978-90-78707-04-2

References

External links

• Extinct Cats Index
• Illinois State Museum: Sabre-toothed Cats
• UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology: Sabre-toothed Cats
• Prehistoric cats and prehistoric cat-like creatures
• NHM.org

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