The story
Sabre-toothed cats evolved in several lineages over about 20 million years, but the best known is Smilodon, from the Pleistocene of the Americas. Its earliest fossils are about 2.5 million years old, and the genus ran until about 10,000 years ago. Smilodon fatalis, of North America, weighed about 160 to 280 kilograms and had upper canines up to roughly 18 centimetres long, flattened like blades. The largest species, Smilodon populator, of South America, was heavier still.
Smilodon was built for power rather than speed, with thick forelimbs, short legs and a short tail. Studies of its jaw suggest a weaker bite than a lion's, and the cat probably used its strong front limbs to hold large prey while delivering a precise killing bite to the throat with the canines. Its prey included bison, camels, horses and ground sloths. The most important fossil source is Rancho La Brea in Los Angeles, where thousands of Smilodon bones have been recovered from the tar. Sabre-toothed cats disappeared with other Pleistocene megafauna, when the large prey they depended upon vanished. Their lineage was never ancestral to living cats, which belong to a different branch.
Why it mattered
- Smilodon shows how a predator evolved extreme weapons, tuned to hunting large, slow prey.
- Its remains at La Brea reveal predator populations in ice age ecosystems.
- Its extinction is one of the signature losses of the Pleistocene megafauna.
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