The Garden of Eaden: THE SABER-TOOTHED TIGER

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The saber-toothed tiger - or more correctly - the saber-toothed cat is one of the most iconic mammals to have ever lived on this planet. However, you may be surprised to find out that there wasn't just one saber toothed cat. In fact there are over one hundred species and sub-species that can make claim to this title ranging from the extinct subfamilies of Machairodontinae (Felidae), Barbourofelidae (Feliformia), and Nimravidae (Feliformia). There are also two families related to marsupials whose remains have been found worldwide.

These specialist mammels are so called because of their large, saber-like maxillary canine teeth, which extended from their mouths even when it was closed. Despite the name, not all animals known as saber-toothed cats were closely related to modern felines.

Be that as it may, the one species that comes to most peoples mind when they think of the saber-toothed tiger is the magnificent Smilodon.

Named from the Greek for "chisel tooth, it was described by the Danish naturalist and palaeontologist Peter Wilhelm Lund in 1841 who found the fossils of Smilodon populator in caves near the small town of Lagoa Santa, Brazil.

A fully-grown Smilodon weighed approximately 55 to 470 kg (120 to 1,000 lb), depending on species. It had a short tail, powerful legs, muscular neck and long canines. Smilodon was more robustly built than any modern cat, in fact it was more comparable to a bear! The lumbar region of the back was proportionally short, and the lower limbs were shortened relative to the upper limbs in comparison with modern pantherine cats, suggesting that Smilodon was not built for speed.

Smilodon became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene around 10,000 BC. This was a time which saw the extinction of many other large herbivorous and carnivorous mammals.

Prehistoric humans, who reached North America at the same time and are known to have hunted many of the species that disappeared at this period in time, are often viewed as responsible for this extinction wave. Others have suggested that it was the end of the ice age which caused the extinction.

As the ice sheets retreated there would have been changing vegetation patterns. Grasslands expanded. The summers became more extreme and parts of North America began to dry out. However, this hypothesis does not explain why Smilodon and its ancestors as well as other megafaunal species successfully survived many previous interglacials, and then fairly suddenly died out over the entire contiguous land area of North and South America.

Where did the saber-toothed tiger live?

Perhaps the most impressive of all the saber-toohed tigers is is the magnificent Smilodon, which itself is made up of three sub-species. First found in caves near the small town of Lagoa Santa, Brazil, smilodon species were later discovered to be endemic to both North America and South America.

In fact, if you combine the ranges of all the saber-toothed families together, their distribution would have once covered every continent in the world except Australia and Antarctica. This make it all the more tragic when you consider how such a successful group of animals managed to die out so completely!

What did the saber toothed tiger eat?

Smilodon probably preyed on a wide variety of large game including bison, tapirs, deer, American camels, horses and ground sloths. As it is known for the saber-toothed cat Homotherium, Smilodon might have also killed juvenile mastodons and mammoths. Smilodon may also have attacked prehistoric humans, although this is not known for certain. The La Brea tar pits in California trapped hundreds of Smilodon in the tar, possibly as they tried to feed on mammoths already trapped.