The saber-toothed tigers appeared in the Oligocene, 35 million years ago, and became extinct in the Pleistocene, 1 million years ago. It lived during the Quaternary glacial period, the climate was cold, and the large herbivores were slow, clumsy and easy to kill. But when the ice age ended and the climate warmed, the hardy large herbivores couldn’t adapt and migrated north, dying without enough food. Saber-toothed animals also gradually lost their food sources, were not dominant in hunting, and even became human prey, and finally could only go extinct with the extinction of large herbivores.

Most of the time, paleontologists use the term “Smilodon” to describe carnivorous mammals, whose long & flat canines can Pierce the bodies of other creatures. As they gradually become extinct on Earth, people are also full of curiosity about the ice Age during which they survived. Here, let’s take a look at the eight species of saber-toothed tigers / cats that once dominated the Earth.

Paramachairodus

The Paramachairodus is the oldest known saber-toothed tiger. With a shoulder height of about 58cm, the Paramachairodus is similar to the leopard, but lighter in body. The shape of their limbs suggests that they were flexible tree climbers and could hunt relatively large prey. It belongs to the Miocene epoch between 20 and 9 million years ago. As only fragments have been found, little is known about them.

Both localities are similar in age and suggest that the new species had a very large geographic range extending from northwestern China adjacent to the Tibetan Plateau (Xizang municipality) to southeastern Europe or probably to all of southern Europe. The new species—Paramachaerodus transasiaticus sp. nov is characterized by a combination of features of “Promegantereon” and Paramachaerodus.

Machairodus

The Machairodus is a cat and member of the machairodontinae subfamily that lived in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America from the Miocene to the Pleistocene. The late Miocene was the world’s most dominant large carnivore. It survived on Earth for 13 million years. In the narrow scientific sense, they are true saber-toothed tigers.

They are one of the ancient cats with fearsome dagger-like upper canine teeth. The group is believed to have originated in Europe during the Eocene, when Palaeonictis, one of the descendants of Palaeotherium, successfully evolved these fierce predators. Since its emergence, the Machairodus, relying on its high adaptation to the environment and its more evolved body structure, rapidly spread to Asia, Africa and North America, and occupied the “commanding heights” in the fierce competition for survival with other types of carnivores in the Miocene, and became the most dominant large carnivores in the world at the end of the Miocene.

Homotherium

After the extinction of the Dinofelis, another, more successful group of saber-toothed animals continued to threaten humans. Starting about 5 million years ago, a wide variety of descendants of the different species of Paramachairodus have evolved, collectively known as Homotherium, into a single genus.

All kinds of Homotherium come in different sizes, such as the North American Homotherium serum, which is usually less than a meter tall at the shoulder; The Eurasian species are generally larger, with a shoulder height of more than 1.1m, slightly larger than the African lion, but lighter in weight, between 150KG and 230KG.

The Homotherium is probably a type like the cheetah, which is good at short-distance pursuit and has a strong burst of energy. They developed in Eurasia and Africa, even reaching west to Britain and east into North America.

Xenosmilus

In 1981, two amateur paleontologists discovered a new species of prehistoric cat in Florida, USA. They were looking for fossils of an extinct peccaries (a boar-like animal). But they found not only the remains of dozens of peccaries at the fossil site, but also the fossils of two large carnivores preserved alongside them. They quickly got in touch with Professor Larry Martin, a renowned saber-tooth expert.

Their heavy body, formidable saber teeth and powerful bite are enough to ensure that they are the strongest scavengers. It is believed that the Xenosmilus may have gone extinct earlier than the other two species, because no fossils of it have been found in the late Pleistocene La Brea Tar Pits, and the existing records only cover the period from 1.7 million to 1 million years ago.

Metailurus

The Metailurus is a medium-sized carnivore, a member of the saber-toothed cat family. It has the most perfect hunting and carnivorous ability, with sharp flexing claws at the toe ends and a strong neck that can resist the huge vibration caused by the violent movement of the head and tooth tops.

In Eurasia, a new medium-sized carnivore called the Metailurus appeared and disappeared at about the same time as the Barbourofelis. They have previously been regarded as the surviving descendants of the Nimravidae, and are generally considered to be true felines and members of the saber-toothed cat family.

Their size is similar to that of a mountain lion, with a slender body and short, flat sword teeth, not particularly developed. Like the leopard, the Metailurus is a stealthy killer lurking in the forest, preying on a variety of unsuspecting medium-sized herbivores. However, compared with the big Paramachairodus, they are naturally weak.

Dinofelis

Dinofelis is an extinct member of the genus Metailurus. They are widely distributed in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America and are estimated to be at least 5-1.4 million years old. In its early years, it coexisted with its predecessor as Paramachairodus. They were a rarity among saber-toothed cats, closer to the modern cats we are familiar with.

Between a liger and most saber-toothed cats, it was about 2 meters long and weighed 190 kilograms. Because it looks like a smilodon, it is called “Hoplophoneus”. About a meter tall at the shoulder, about the size of a lioness. The whole body is covered with markings. The most obvious point is that their saber teeth are not particularly developed, but the body is much shorter and stronger than that of modern cats such as jaguars, especially the forelimbs are very powerful. There is a lot of evidence that they were the main natural predators of Australopithecines, our distant ancestors.

Dinofelis are as good at climbing trees as leopards and jaguars, but they don’t seem to be fast or agile enough. It is also likely that their hunting methods were mainly nocturnal raids, rather than pursuit and fighting. In some caves in South Africa, fossils have been found of carnivores that ate the remains of bones, some of which were large antelopes that perhaps only the Dinofelis had the ability to hunt.

Megantereon

The Megantereon appeared in the Late Cenozoic Early Pliocene 6 million years ago, and was distributed in the Old World and North America until the Middle Pleistocene. Megantereon is the earliest species of saber-toothed cat to be studied. They are small (1m to 1.3m long) and have long upper canine teeth (over 10cm).

Its geographical distribution is wide, across Eurasia, non-North America and other continents, survival and continuation time is relatively short, except for Megantereon inexpectatus in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, most of the Villafranchian (Villafranchian age) and its equivalent stratum, Villafranchian An iconic fossil of the fauna.

Smilodon

It is a kind of big cat that appeared in the late Pliocene, and it is a new type that evolved after the Megantereon entered the Americas. They have very exaggerated and sharp “dagger teeth”, big size, and extinction late, unearthed a lot of fossils, and mainly found in the most developed paleontology in the United States. Although they have never ventured outside the new world in three million years, they are often regarded as the most “authentic” and “standard” saber-toothed cat.

The individual size of the deadly Smilodon is similar to that of a lion – with an average body length of 2 meters and a shoulder height of 1 meter. Previous studies have suggested that its weight can reach 1.5 or even 2 times that of an ordinary male lion, which is 270 to 360 kilograms.

They are likely to adopt a unique division of hunting method: first, they slowly sneak close to their prey like other cats (usually various bison and wild horses). Then, the chasing Smilodon will drive the prey into an ambush circle, and the ambushing Smilodon will use its brute force to engage in melee with the prey. After completely subduing the prey, it will use sharp sword teeth like sharp knives to cut off its carotid artery or trachea with one blow, which can be fatal.

QUESTION: How many saber-toothed tiger models have you built?

ANSWER: In fact, we’ve lost count! Every time the client brings us a different pictures and tells us to make the saber-toothed tigers inside. Let’s just say we made more than 15 animatronic saber-toothed tiger models. We can make any Ice Age tiger model on demand.

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