🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

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 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 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 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 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 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…

This overview surveys the internal classification of the Machairodontinae, the true sabertooth cats within the family Felidae. Researchers commonly divide the subfamily into several tribes: the Smilod…