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Split sabretooths from living cats on feline family tree: paleontologists
CBC News ^ | 08 Aug 2005

Posted on 08/09/2005 9:14:38 AM PDT by jb6

The ancient sabretooth is not directly related to modern day cats, according to a new DNA analysis.

Large cats such as the sabretooth roamed North and South America toward the end of the last Ice Age, around 13,000 years ago.

The puma, also known as a mountain lion or cougar, and the jaguar are the only remaining large cats in the Western Hemisphere.

Paleontologists have closely studied the extinct American cats based on their bone structure, but the proposed relationships remain contentious.

To refine the branches of the feline family tree, Ross Barnett of the Henry Wellcome Ancient Biomolecules Centre in Oxford and his colleagues from Britain, Sweden, the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, the U.S. and Australia compared DNA from three large cats to modern members of the cat family.

The researchers examined specimens of a sabretooth cat from Patagonia, a related scimitartoothed cat from the Yukon and a cheetah-like cat called Miracinonyx trumani.

"Our results show that the sabretooths diverge early and are not closely related to any living cats," the team concludes in the Aug. 9 issue of the journal Current Biology.

Another cat that resembles a cheetah, called Miracinonyx, is actually a relative of today's puma, the researchers said.

Scientists have proposed that cheetahs started out in the New World, but the analysis of mitochondrial DNA and fossil data points to their origins in the Old World.

The study's authors suggest Miracinonyx evolved long limbs and large nostrils suited "to excel in high-speed pursuit" of its antelope prey in the Midwest, just as modern cheetahs are built for chasing in the African savannah.

The feline family tree split into its Miracinonyx and puma branches as the prairie grassland grew in North America, the team notes.


TOPICS: Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: cats; cryptobiology; dna; evolution; godsgravesglyphs; history; paleontology; sabertooth; sabretoothcat; sabretoothed; sabretoothedcat; sabretoothedtiger; sabretoothtiger; science; smilodon; technology

1 posted on 08/09/2005 9:14:39 AM PDT by jb6
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To: Sabertooth

Here's one for you...if you're still out there.


2 posted on 08/09/2005 9:18:00 AM PDT by gubamyster
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To: jb6

Viking Kitties soon to respond.


3 posted on 08/09/2005 9:24:03 AM PDT by mtbopfuyn (Legality does not dictate morality... Lavin)
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To: gubamyster

It depends on the timeframe you are considering. Ultimately, all large mammals came from Asia! The other night on Discovery (I think), a program traced the evolution of mammals based on the fossils that have been discovered.

When the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, giant flightless birds (i.e., over 6 feet tall) with huge beaks became the dominant predator everywhere but in Asia (which was then cut off from the rest of the continents by ice). Mammals remained small except in Asia, probably because the birds ate the big ones. It took about 20 million years for the mammals in Asia to diversify and get large, and for mammal carnavores to arise.

Then the earth got warm, and land bridges to the other continents opened up. Within a short period of time, the giant birds became extinct, probably because the mammal carnavores ate them. Mammals then became the dominant life form everywhere for the next 45 million years.

Unless G-d created these fossils just to mess with our minds.


4 posted on 08/09/2005 9:34:24 AM PDT by Mack the knife
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To: jb6; MeekOneGOP; Lady Jag; PetroniDE; Slings and Arrows

5 posted on 08/09/2005 9:52:32 AM PDT by martin_fierro (< |:)~)
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To: jb6; Slings and Arrows; Glenn; quantim; republicangel; Bahbah; Beaker; BADROTOFINGER; etabeta; ...
My kitties demand a retest.

[Thanks to martin_fierro and grizzfan for the pings!]
---
Kitty Ping List alert!

[Freepmail me to get on or off the Kitty Ping List.]

6 posted on 08/09/2005 9:55:59 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows ("MON CANARD EST EN FEU!!" -- http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050620.html)
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To: jb6

bump


7 posted on 08/09/2005 9:57:48 AM PDT by EveningStar
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To: SunkenCiv

ping


8 posted on 08/09/2005 10:35:38 AM PDT by EveningStar
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To: Slings and Arrows
pic006.jpg

This is going to require some serious thought.

9 posted on 08/09/2005 10:36:25 AM PDT by The_Victor (I'm adrift, my tagline just snapped)
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To: The_Victor

Your think tank looks to be hard at work.

P.S. Awwww!


10 posted on 08/09/2005 10:39:53 AM PDT by Slings and Arrows ("MON CANARD EST EN FEU!!" -- http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20050620.html)
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To: PatrickHenry

Ping!


11 posted on 08/09/2005 10:59:19 AM PDT by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: balrog666
We've already got a thread on this: DNA traces evolution of extinct sabertooths and the American cheetah-like cat.
12 posted on 08/09/2005 11:02:33 AM PDT by PatrickHenry (Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. The List-O-Links is at my homepage.)
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To: martin_fierro; jb6

13 posted on 08/09/2005 11:12:00 AM PDT by Lady Jag (Honor - Dignity - Courage)
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To: Slings and Arrows

14 posted on 08/09/2005 11:15:43 AM PDT by Lady Jag (Honor - Dignity - Courage)
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To: EveningStar; blam; FairOpinion; Ernest_at_the_Beach; StayAt HomeMother; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; asp1; ...
Thanks EveningStar for the ping. Mew may know what I think of mtDNA studies, snarl still ping the list though.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off
the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

15 posted on 08/09/2005 12:10:06 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Down with Dhimmicrats! I last updated by FR profile on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.)
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New Insight Into Horse Evolution
BBC | Saturday, 2 July, 2005 | Helen Briggs
Posted on 07/03/2005 2:03:06 AM PDT by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1435663/posts


16 posted on 08/09/2005 12:32:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Down with Dhimmicrats! I last updated by FR profile on Tuesday, May 10, 2005.)
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To: Mack the knife

"...Ultimately, all large mammals came from Asia..."

As I understand it, camelids originated in the new world and migrated into the old.


17 posted on 08/09/2005 1:30:49 PM PDT by Renfield (If Gene Tracy was the entertainment at your senior prom, YOU might be a redneck...)
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To: Renfield
As I understand it, camelids originated in the new world and migrated into the old.

Clarification: The program asserted that large mammals originated in Asia from 65 million years ago until about 45 million years ago, then migrated out. That leaves 45 million years to have additional migrations back and forth when land bridges existed.

18 posted on 08/09/2005 2:08:25 PM PDT by Mack the knife
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