AsianScientist (Nov. 16, 2016) – Researchers in China have discovered a fossilized skull of a sabertooth cat, which they say is the biggest ever found. Their findings have been published in Vertebrata PalAsiatica.
The skull measures around 40 centimeters long, which translates to an enormous estimated body mass of over 892 pounds and body length of 3.1 meters; roughly equivalent to a male polar bear. Although the skull was slightly crushed, the researchers were able to identify the cat as a Machairodus horribilis, a menacingly large cat from the Late Miocene of northwestern China. Ironically, its gape was much smaller than other cats, which suggests it targeted smaller prey.
“Its anatomical features provide new evidence for the diversity of killing bites even within in the largest saber-toothed carnivorans,” the researchers said.
The sabretooth tiger may have been capable of slaying mammoths and rhinos, but it only had relatively small teeth until the age of three. Research suggests that the animal’s impressively long, dagger-shaped teeth developed later in life than similar-sized living members of the cat family.
Overall, the researchers believe that their findings offer evidence for an additional mechanism of evolution which led to the functional diversity observed in sabertooth cats.
The article can be found at: Deng et al. (2016) A Skull of Machairodus Horribilis and New Evidence for Gigantism as a Mode of Mosaic Evolution in Machairodonts (Felidae, Carnivora).
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Source: Chinese Academy of Sciences.
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