Saber-toothed cat - Smilodon fatalis
Tucked beside the lumbering skeleton of an American mastodon in the Museum’s Kirtland Hall of Prehistoric Life resides the fossil remains of one of the most ferocious and most feared Ice Age predators: the Saber-toothed cat. When both animals were living, 3 million to 10,000 years ago during the Pleistocene, such close proximity would have most certainly signaled certain death for the mastodon at the jaws of the mighty feline hunter.
Danish zoologist, naturalist and paleontologist Peter Wilhelm Lund (1801 – 1880) was the first person to describe the Saber-toothed cat from fossils he discovered in a cave in Lagoa Santa, Brazil, in 1842. His new genus, Smilodon, which is derived from the ancient Greek words for knife and tooth, is the first recorded Saber-toothed specimen.
An Ice Age animal, the Smilodon's feline stature and gigantic teeth quickly captured the public’s imagination as a fierce tiger. Yet, the Smilodon is not from the tiger family. In actuality, the prehistoric cat has more in common with today’s modern African lion, but it is not a lion, either. More similar to a bobcat with its compact limbs and a bobbed tail, the average Smilodon weighed between 400 and 800 pounds and was 39 to 47 inches tall at the shoulder.
Scientists presume the Smilodon was brown in color, much like the lions of today, with some kind of striping in its fur for camouflage. It is believed the Smilodon hunted its large prey by lying in wait. The animal’s skeleton suggests how it probably did not have the ability to chase down its prey. The Smilodon was a heavy animal, denser than today’s predatory cats, with shorter, muscular limbs and a very short tail—all characteristics not suited for speed. Instead, the animal probably stalked its prey, concealing itself to ambush big animals such as plant-eating prehistoric bison and horses, giant ground sloths, mammoths and mastodons.
The Smilodon most likely used its strength to disable its victim before delivering the death bite. The cat would have wielded its gigantic teeth to stab or tear at the soft neck tissues or stomach area of its prey. The two oversized upper canine teeth were approximately 8 to 10 inches long with a serrated inner edge like a knife.
The teeth were long, but slender and curved. The animal’s lower jaw opened at an angle greater than 90 degrees to accommodate such large canines. No feline from the modern animal kingdom has teeth or a bite as fierce as the Smilodon. Yet, while an unparalleled killing tool, the Saber-toothed cat’s teeth could break in a particularly violent fight to the death or if the cat struck the bone of its prey.
Much of what we know about Smilodon comes from Rancho La Brea, California, where the remains of 2,000 Saber-toothed cats have been discovered preserved in shallow pools of natural asphalt. The Le Brea Tar Pits, as the location in Los Angeles is commonly called, is a site of geological significance. Over a period of thousands of years, scores of Ice Age animals met their end trapped in the pooling tar-like substance. The huge number of Smilodon fossils found in Rancho La Brea is why the Saber-toothed cat has been designated as California’s state fossil.
There are three primary species of Saber-toothed cats: the Smilodon populator discovered by Lund, the Smilodon gracilis (the most diminutive of the three), and the Smilodon fatalis, the species that includes the californicus subspecies from the Museum’s collection. Smilodons primarily inhabited North and South America; however, Saber-toothed cat remains have been found in Europe.
The great Saber-toothed cat went extinct 10,000 years ago. Whether from climate change or over hunting by humans that diminished its food supply, we can only guess. The Museum’s specimen is a complete composite skeleton of a Smilodon fatalis composed almost entirely of original material. It came to the Museum from Rancho La Brea in 1914. Museum visitors can gaze upon its teeth and speculate for themselves just how such a supremely designed killing machine met its match.