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🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries
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11 summaries matching “Homotherium” in Paleontology & Fossil Felids on smilodon
Distinct predatory behaviors in scimitar- and dirk-toothed sabertooth cats
PaperThis study used three-dimensional analysis of skull and jaw shape to test whether scimitar-toothed and dirk-toothed sabercats differed in how they killed prey. By quantifying cranial geometry across m…
Borja Figueirido, Stephan Lautenschlager, Alejandro Perez-Ramos, Blaire Van Valkenburgh · Current Biology · 2018
Evolutionary History of Saber-Toothed Cats Based on Ancient Mitogenomics
PaperThis study recovered complete mitochondrial genomes from the dirk-toothed Smilodon and the scimitar-toothed Homotherium, allowing a genetic test of how these iconic sabertooths relate to one another a…
Johanna L. A. Paijmans, Ross Barnett, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, et al. · Current Biology · 2017
Research overview: big cats in the Quaternary megafaunal extinctions
OverviewThis overview surveys the disappearance of numerous large cats, including Smilodon, Homotherium, the American lion, the cave lion, and Miracinonyx, as part of the broader late Quaternary megafaunal ex…
Research overview: cats and the Great American Biotic Interchange
OverviewThis overview surveys how the Great American Biotic Interchange, triggered by the rise of the Panamanian land bridge, allowed cats to spread between North and South America. Following this connection,…
Research overview: limb proportions and the ambush lifestyle of Smilodon
OverviewThis overview examines how the limb proportions of Smilodon distinguish it from pursuit predators and point to an ambush hunting style. Compared with cursorial carnivores built for speed, the sabertoo…
Research overview: methods for estimating body mass in fossil felids
OverviewThis overview reviews the quantitative methods palaeontologists use to estimate the body mass of extinct cats such as Smilodon, Homotherium, and Panthera atrox. Because soft tissue is not preserved, r…
Research overview: prey specialization and extinction risk in big cats
OverviewThis overview examines the idea that dietary and predatory specialization made many extinct big cats especially vulnerable to extinction. Hypercarnivorous predators such as sabertooths, with anatomy f…
Research overview: radiocarbon dating of late Pleistocene cats
OverviewThis overview examines how radiocarbon dating is applied to the bones of late Pleistocene cats to reconstruct their chronologies and last appearances. Directly dating individual fossils of Smilodon, c…
Research overview: scimitar-toothed versus dirk-toothed sabercats
OverviewThis overview explains the long-recognized morphological divide among sabertooth cats between scimitar-toothed forms, such as Homotherium, and dirk-toothed forms, such as Smilodon and Megantereon. Sci…
Research overview: the long global decline of the sabertooths
OverviewThis overview takes a deep-time perspective on the rise and fall of sabertooth cats, whose machairodont lineage flourished for more than ten million years before vanishing in the late Pleistocene. Aft…
The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives
ReviewThis influential book provides a comprehensive illustrated survey of the cat family and its extinct members, combining scientific synthesis with detailed reconstructions of fossil felids and their sab…
Alan Turner, Mauricio Anton · Columbia University Press · 1997