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Leopards and tigers today are fairly solitary beasts, but the extinct sabertooth cat was likely a social animal that lived and hunted like today’s lions, a new study suggests.
The sabertooth cat (Smilodon fatalis) is famous for its extremely long canine teeth, which reached up to seven inches in length and extended below the lower jaw.
Although commonly called the “sabertoothed tiger,” the species is actually not closely related to the tiger, which is part of a different subfamily. However, the sabertooth cat was large and muscular, similar in size to a modern-day tiger.
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I’m particularly fascinated by the scientist’s method of research. They sort of reenacted a situation in which the cries of many prey animals trapped in a tar pit attracted solitary and social carnivores. Then they compared the proportions of the social carnivores in the reenactment to the proportion of fossilized sabertooth tigers in the tar pit. Because the proportions matched, the researchers concluded that sabertooth tigers may have been social, like lions, instead of solitary, like my adorable little kitty cat.
Related articles on the web:
- Sabretooth tigers hunted in packs
- Sabre-tooth tiger study suggests they hunted in packs
- Study: Saber-toothed cat had weak jaw
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