Research overview: the last occurrences of Homotherium worldwide

This overview surveys efforts to determine when and where the scimitar-toothed cat Homotherium finally disappeared on each continent. In the Americas the genus persisted into the late Pleistocene, while in Europe a famous North Sea mandible and ancient-DNA evidence suggest survival far later than once thought. The survey reviews how radiocarbon dating of the youngest specimens constrains the genus's extinction across its enormous range, the surprises that late-surviving records have produced, and the difficulties of dating rare and fragmentary material. It discusses what the staggered timing of Homotherium's regional disappearances reveals about the decline of sabertooths, how the scimitar cat's fate compares with that of Smilodon and other large carnivores, and why pinning down last occurrences is central to understanding the end of the sabertooth era.