Research overview: the timing and causes of Smilodon extinction

This overview reviews what is known about when and why Smilodon disappeared, with the best-dated records clustering near the end of the Pleistocene around the time of widespread megafaunal extinction in the Americas. Because sabertooths depended on large herbivores, the collapse of megaherbivore populations, driven by some combination of rapid climate change and the spread of human hunters, removed the prey base on which these specialized predators relied. The survey weighs competing hypotheses, examines how radiocarbon dating of Smilodon fossils constrains the last appearances of the genus, and considers why hyper-specialized big cats may be especially vulnerable to ecological upheaval. It situates the sabertooth's end within the broader pattern of late Quaternary carnivore losses.