Image Credit : Iowa State University
Posted on 04/13/2023 8:08:06 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
...the First Evidence of the Prehistoric Predator Roaming the State at the End of the Ice Age Between 13,605 and 13,460 Years Ago.
The sabertoothed cat (Smilodon) is one of the best-known genera of the machairodont, an extinct subfamily of carnivoran mammals of the family Felidae (true cats). They are popularly referred to as "sabertoothed tigers", although they are not closely related to tigers (Panthera).
The genus was named in 1842 based on fossils from Brazil; the generic name means "scalpel" or "two-edged knife" combined with "tooth".
Researchers discovered the remarkably well-preserved skull in Page County, southwest Iowa...
The skull belonged to a subadult (2-3 years old), which based upon comparisons to skulls from the Rancho La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, indicates that it was a male that weighed around 249 kg...
In a study published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, a team from the Northwest Missouri State University used radiocarbon dating which determined that the cat died at the end of the Ice Age between 13,605 and 13,460 years ago. This makes the specimen one of the last known sabertoothed cats before the planetary temperatures rose causing glaciers to recede.
According to the researchers, southwest Iowa at the time was a parkland with patches of trees interspersed with grassy openings. Sabertoothed cats would have lived alongside other extinct animals such as dire wolf, giant short-faced bear, long-nosed peccary, flat-headed peccary, stag-moose, muskox, and giant ground sloth, and maybe a few bison and mammoth.
How the sabertoothed cat died is not clear, but a broken canine might offer a clue. The study speculates that the animal was seriously injured while attacking prey, which ultimately proved fatal within days of the trauma.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
Megafauna extinction:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
Never smile at a smiledon.
Can we clone some and release them in San Francisco?
They were probably cute as kittens.
What’s 249 kilograms in American?
A 550 lb kitten.
.
Probably.
But still no match for the ferocious modern day Maine Coon Cat.
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He would need a LARGE litter box.
AI will probably Clone them to help eradicate the human problem on earth.
The state of Iowa Goes back HOW far? 13000 years?
The things I learn on the interwebs......
ME-OWWWWWWWWWWW
All of which died out completely just a few years after a skinny, light-weight, biped walked across the Caucus steppes and mountains, the Siberian Plains and the Mongolian high plains, crossed the barren muddy Bering Plains and then walked down the (future) Canadian and Central US flatlands.
Man! Them little biped babies sure are tough and mean! (That, or their mothers are.)
Don’t give them ideas!
OR
They were wiped out by a giant meteor strike in what is now northern Canada...........................
They died out at the end of the Ice Age. Their remains have been found all over the High Plains. Most specimens come from the La Brea tar pits.
.
549 pounds
Yesterday I had to put one of my beloved cats to sleep.
She had cancer, poor thing. She’s gone to Rainbow Bridge where all the doggies and cats go.
Where can I get one these?
My neighbor has an annoying little mutt that barks it’s head off night and day.
Big kitty here with the choppers is just what I need to end the noise.
All of them died out simultaneously due to, well, it’s in that book I linked up there. At least, I *think* I did... hmm...
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