Research overview: body-size trends in sabertooth evolution

This overview reviews how body size changed over the long history of the machairodont sabertooths. From relatively modest early forms in the Miocene, several lineages trended toward large or giant size, culminating in animals like the great scimitar cats and the massive Smilodon populator. Researchers examine whether these increases reflect Cope's rule, the availability of large herbivore prey, competitive dynamics among predators, or repeated independent size escalation within separate tribes. The survey discusses methods for estimating mass across the group, how size correlates with hunting style and prey choice, and what the recurrent evolution of large sabertooths implies about the ecological niches available to ambush and pursuit predators across the Neogene and Quaternary in both the Old and New Worlds.