🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This 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

This study quantified variation in skull and lower-jaw shape across living and extinct cats to understand the patterns and constraints governing felid cranial evolution. Using morphometric analysis of…

Per Christiansen · PLoS ONE · 2008

This 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

This classic study analysed the skull architecture of sabertooth cats to explain how the distinctive cranial features functioned together during the killing bite. The authors examined how the enlarged…

Sharon B. Emerson, Leonard Radinsky · Paleobiology · 1980

This study used geometric morphometrics to chart how skull shape evolved across sabertooth cats and their conical-toothed relatives. By quantifying cranial landmarks in many felid species, the authors…

Graham J. Slater, Blaire Van Valkenburgh · Paleobiology · 2008

This authoritative review chapter synthesizes the evolutionary history and phylogeny of the cat family, integrating fossil evidence with molecular data to present a comprehensive picture of how cats d…

Lars Werdelin, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Warren E. Johnson, Stephen J. O'Brien · Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids (Oxford University Press) · 2010

This overview examines Dinofelis, a leopard-to-jaguar-sized cat of the Pliocene and early Pleistocene placed among the Metailurini, whose moderately enlarged, flattened canines mark it as an intermedi…

This overview surveys Machairodus and its later, larger relative Amphimachairodus, big scimitar-toothed cats that dominated late Miocene predator guilds across Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Thes…

This overview examines Megantereon, a relatively small but powerfully built dirk-toothed cat of the Pliocene and early Pleistocene whose remains are known from Africa, Eurasia, and North America. With…

This overview surveys Metailurus, a medium-sized cat of the late Miocene and Pliocene that lends its name to the Metailurini, a tribe of machairodonts with only modestly developed sabre canines. Less…

This overview surveys the early machairodonts Paramachairodus and the closely related Promegantereon, small to mid-sized dirk-toothed cats known from the late Miocene of Spain. Exceptional material fr…

This overview surveys Xenosmilus, an unusual North American machairodont that combined features of scimitar- and dirk-toothed cats, with relatively short, broad, serrated canines set in a massive, hea…

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 siz…

This overview surveys studies of how strong, or how vulnerable, the elongated canines of sabertooths actually were. Because the long, blade-like teeth are relatively narrow from side to side, they are…

This overview surveys what the claw anatomy of sabertooth cats reveals about how they handled prey. Like living felids, machairodonts had retractile claws, but in robust dirk-toothed forms such as Smi…

This overview reviews how incremental growth lines preserved in sabertooth tooth enamel and dentine are used to reconstruct the developmental schedule of the famous canines. Like tree rings, these mic…

This overview surveys experimental and computational studies that test how sabertooth canines performed when penetrating flesh and bone. Researchers have used physical models, replica teeth, and simul…

This overview surveys how finite-element analysis transformed understanding of sabertooth killing mechanics by revealing an apparent paradox: animals like Smilodon had skulls poorly suited to withstan…

This overview surveys the bony chin flanges, or mandibular flanges, found in many sabertooth carnivores, including barbourofelids and the marsupial-relative Thylacosmilus, and in reduced form in some…

This overview synthesizes the striking pattern by which a sabertooth body plan evolved repeatedly and independently across unrelated lineages of predatory mammals. True cats (machairodonts), nimravids…

This overview addresses how sabertooths like Smilodon achieved the enormous gape needed to clear their elongated canines and apply them to prey. Estimates suggest the jaws could open to roughly twice…

This overview examines how the neck and skull anatomy of Smilodon and other sabertooths reveal the mechanics of the killing bite. Because the jaw muscles alone produced a comparatively weak bite, much…

This 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…

This overview compares the killing strategies of sabertooth cats with those of conical-toothed felids such as modern lions and tigers. Living big cats typically use short, robust canines and a powerfu…

This 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…

This overview surveys studies of the fine structure of sabertooth canines, focusing on the serrations, or denticles, along their cutting edges and the internal histology of the teeth. Dirk-toothed cat…

This overview describes the Cerro Batallones fossil sites in central Spain, a cluster of late Miocene deposits remarkable for their unusually high proportion of carnivores, including the sabertooths M…

This overview examines the vertebral column and trunk anatomy of machairodont cats and how they contributed to predation. The neck vertebrae of sabertooths are often elongated and bear large attachmen…

This overview examines the fundamental mechanical compromise that shaped sabertooth skulls: achieving a gape wide enough to clear elongated canines came at the cost of bite force. Opening the jaws to…

This overview traces the long history of competing models for how sabertooths used their elongated canines. Early ideas ranged from stabbing thrusts to a clamp-type bite, but each faced the problem th…