Tag Archive for 'Saber-toothed mammal'

The pawprints of a nimravid from the John Day Formation of Oregon, the United States. Image credit: NPS.

29-Million-Year-Old Footprints of False Saber-Toothed Cat Discovered in Oregon

Apr 25, 2025 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered 50- to 25-million-year-old fossilized footprints of invertebrates and vertebrates, including a false saber-toothed cat...

Graphic showing functional optimality drives repeated evolution of extreme saber-tooth forms. Image credit: Tahlia Pollock.

Study: Saber-Toothed Predators’ Teeth were Highly Effective at Puncturing Prey

Jan 9, 2025 by News Staff

Saber-toothed predators — such as the famous saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis — evolved multiple times across different mammal groups. Their...

Felidae, a highly diverse carnivoran family, emerged during the Oligocene in Eurasia and quickly spread worldwide during the Miocene. Although Felidae represents the sole extant cat-like clade, the sabertoothed morphotype is a textbook example of iterative evolution, having evolved many times among placentals, marsupials, and gorgonopsians. Nimravidae is a well-diversified yet fully extinct carnivoran clade that extensively explored a range of cat-like morphologies, and although they have been commonly called ‘false cats’ or ‘false sabertooth cats’ in opposition to the ‘true cats,’ they evolved cat-like morphologies, including both saber-toothed and non-saber-toothed forms, tens of millions of years prior to the appearance of felids. Image credit: Narimane Chatar / Université de Liège.

New Study Uncovers Secrets of Saber-Tooth Evolution

May 21, 2024 by News Staff

Paleontologists from the University of Liège and elsewhere have investigated the evolutionary patterns behind the development of saber teeth in two groups...

The canine of saber-toothed predators represents one of the most specialized dental structures known. Hypotheses about the function of hypertrophied canines range from display and conspecific interaction, soft food processing, to active prey acquisition. Recent research on the ontogenetic timing of skull traits indicates the adult canine can take years to fully erupt, but the consequences of prolonged eruption on inferences of canine functional morphology are missing from current discourse and have not been quantified. In his new study, Tseng evaluates hypotheses about adult canine bending strength and stiffness, respectively, during eruption in Smilodon fatalis. Image credit: Massimo Molinero.

Saber-Toothed Tigers Held onto Their Milk Teeth to Stabilize Their Sabers, Study Suggests

May 1, 2024 by News Staff

A new analysis of the distinctive canines of the saber-toothed tiger (Smilodon fatalis) suggests that the baby tooth — one of the deciduous teeth...

An artist’s impression of Pangurban egiae. Image credit: Kyoto University / Jim Melli, San Diego Natural History Museum.

Eocene-Period Mammal Was Hypercarnivore with Serrated Teeth

Oct 14, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

A new genus and species of saber-toothed mammalian carnivore has been identified from a fossil found in California, the United States. An artist’s impression...

Life reconstruction of Diegoaelurus vanvalkenburghae. Image credit: San Diego Natural History Museum.

Saber-Toothed Mammal Fossil Unearthed in California

Mar 16, 2022 by News Staff

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a bobcat-sized creature from a extinct lineage of carnivorous placental mammals. Life reconstruction...