Armchair Paleontologist

Armchair Paleontologist

This page is mostly about my passion for these wondrous prehistoric animals. I have my own ideas about smilodons and am absolutely delighted when some scientist hypothesized something similar. Otherwise, I sound like Miss Anne Elk (This theory - which is mine - is that smilodons have nasty big teeth, etc. )

If you are an armchair paleontologist like me, you may enjoy some of these speculations, theories, and dreams about the sabertooth cats!

Smilodon Pride

One of my pet peeves is the idea that Smilodon fatalis was just plain stupid. The reason for this assumption is because there are a large proportion of them found in the La Brea Tar Pits. There are many more Smilodon fatalis than American lions or dire wolves, so many theorists suggest that the Smilodon fatalis just blundered into the tar because only their sabers were sharp.

Not only that, some theorists also suggest that Smilodon fatalis were too stupid to be social animals like lions and were solitary hunters. I never thought much of this theory because no one has ever demonstrated to me that lions (social) were any brighter than tigers (solitary) in modern times.

My personal belief was that Smilodon fatalis weren't really built for speed and were ambush hunters. American lion, like modern lions, probably hunted on the grassy plains. Smilodon fatalis most likely stalked watering holes and may have hunted cooperatively to drive prey towards an ambush team. An animal that couldn't run and was mired in the tar would have seemed like a good deal for a hunting party of Smilodon fatalis.

In the Oct. 28 issue of the journal Biology Letters, a study compared data from the La Brea fossil record and data obtained from "playbacks" used in Africa. The recorded calls of distressed prey and the sounds of lions and hyenas are used to attract carnivores. In eastern and southern Africa,this technique has been used by scientists to estimate carnivore population densities.

Social species respond to the playback calls overwhelmingly, considering their population size compared to other carnivores. Large social carnivores were, in fact, found to attend about 60 times more often than expected on the basis of relative abundance.

How did the Smilodons at La Brea compare? The proportion of Smilodon fatalis records matched the proportion of the large social carnivores in the playbacks.

"It absolutely makes sense that social species will predominate at carcasses, both now and in the past," said researcher Blaire Van Valkenburgh, UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "Why approach a situation where you are likely to encounter dangerous competitors without having a few friends along?"

The same social advantage, she said, would apply to all scavengers, including early humans, who began consuming more meat about 2 million year ago, some of which they probably scavenged.

"The extinct sabertooth cat, Smilodon fatalis, has been something of an enigma, with almost nothing known of its behavior," said Chris Carbone, a senior research fellow at the Zoological Society of London, who led the research. "This research allowed us to use the behavior of its present-day relatives to conclude that this extinct cat was more likely to roam in formidable gangs than as a secretive, solitary animal."

Other scientists who helped with the study work at South Africa's Tshwane University of Technology and University of Pretoria.

So there we have it. Smilodon fatalis were social animals and their hunting techniques worked against them at La Brea. Otherwise, the species in North America was very successful.

Maybe we should compare the America lion's and the Smilodon's SAT scores to be sure...

Don't call me stupid!

Carnefx faux taxidermy Smilodon

YOUR GUIDE TO THE EPOCHS:

PALEOCENE EPOCH - 65 million years - 55 million years ago. It is the 1st epoch of the Cenozoic Era and marks the beginning of the "Age of the Mammals". Marsupials appear as well as the first creodonts. By the late Paleocene, Miacis - the ancestor of all carnivora - appears.

EOCENE EPOCH - 55 million - 33 million years ago. Rodents are the predominant small mammal. Early horse, elephants, and rhinos appear. The earliest meateaters, the creodonts, include several catlike species known as the oxyaenids. The middle Eocene gives rise to carnivores: the nimravids, but they aren't true cats yet.

OLIGOCENE EPOCH - 33 million - 23 million years ago. It is the third and final epoch of the Paleocene period. True felines (Proailurus) first appear.

MIOCENE EPOCH - begins 23 million years - 5 million years ago. It is the first epoch of the Neogene period. It is also the longest epoch of the Cenozoic Era, spanning 20 million years. The nimravids go extinct near the end of the Miocene. Pseudaelurus is the last common ancestor for felines and the machairodontinae. The marsupial Thylacosmilus appears in South America.

PLIOCENE EPOCH - 5 million years - 1.8 million years ago. It is the second and final epoch of the Neogene period. Hyaenas, thylacoleo, and early sabertoothed cats appear.

PLEISTOCENE EPOCH begins 1.8 million years ago and concludes with the end of the Ice Ages, about 10,000 years ago. In the early Pleistocene, Thylacosmilus -unable to compete with Smilodon - becomes extinct. By the late Pleistocene, the severe climate contributes to massive megafauna extinctions including the sabertoothed cats and thylacoleo.

HOLOCENE EPOCH - 10,000 years ago- modern times. The last sabertooth cats and cave lions became extinct near the beginning of this period. Most modern wild cats are dangerously close to extinction now.

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All text content and research on Sabertooth's Pride and the SP linked sites were created by Muninn of Hercules Invictus unless otherwise credited.

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