Evolution of the extinct Sabretooths and the American cheetah-like cat

This study recovered ancient DNA from extinct North American cats, including the scimitar-toothed Homotherium and the cheetah-like Miracinonyx, to test their relationships against living felids. The genetic data confirmed that Miracinonyx was not a true cheetah but a New World form closely allied to the puma lineage, its cheetah-like build the product of convergent evolution rather than shared ancestry with the African and Asian Acinonyx. The sabertooth sequences helped place Homotherium relative to other cats and demonstrated the power of palaeogenetics to resolve questions that skeletal morphology alone left ambiguous. The work was an early landmark in extracting and interpreting ancient mitochondrial DNA from Pleistocene felids and reshaping their evolutionary tree.