Take a picture of yourself with a saber-toothed cat. The dagger-shaped teeth of the upper canines are particularly sinister because they remained in view even when the cat closed its mouth.
The saber-toothed cat was one of the most widespread cats in Earth's ancient history. Many artistic reconstructions of Homotherium latidens are wrong according to a team of researchers. Depictions of the cats with pointed teeth need to be revised because the animal's defining feature was a concealed weapon until the cat was ready to strike or otherwise open its mouth.
The most powerful saber-toothed cat of the Old-World Pleistocene was Homotherium latidens. The fossil record shows that Homotherium first appeared around four million years ago. The species ranged from the southernmost tip of Africa to South America. A fossil site in Texas suggested that groups of Homotheriums hunted together to bring down mammoths. The species went extinct 10,000 years ago.
The cat had long, scimitar-shaped upper canines and was the size of a lion. The tips of the sabers of Homotherium would have been visible in life, even when the cat was dead. Homotherium was similar to the profile of the saber-toothed cat.
The paleontological researcher began to wonder if he and other researchers were getting the cat's deadly dentition wrong.
The fossils and dissections of modern big cats gave scientists a wealth of knowledge about saber-toothed cats.
The lower lip of a male lion in the Okavango Delta was contracting as the mouth was closing, and Mr. ants discovered something he had never seen before. I was wondering if I was really seeing it.
The implications of his observation were studied by a team of scientists. They looked at fossil dissections and made a 3-DCT Scan of a Homotherium lat fossil.
A huge amount of information that we can use to infer the life appearance of an extinct felid is provided by combining these techniques.
There wasn't room for the lower lip and soft tissue to fit between the upper canine and the gum. The canines could be hidden against the lower jaw.
The saber-toothed cats were frightening. The sabers cut the teeth of Homotherium, which were narrow and blade-like.
The lion's upper canines are 1.5 inches long. The Homotherium was 3 inches long. The teeth of the Smilodon fatalis, the largest saber-toothed cat, may be 6 inches long, which is why the new findings don't apply to them.
The study's authors wondered where detective stories like this one might lead next.
We have a whole biosphere in museum drawers that are just waiting to be discovered.
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