Saber-toothed tigers, as prehistoric big cats, lived in ancient times, and are actually a general term for all prehistoric cats with super long canine teeth. The real saber-toothed tiger appeared 23 million to 10,000 years ago during the early Miocene to the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, the "saber-toothed tiger subfamily" in the cat family.
Saber-toothed tigers range almost all over the land, except for Antarctica and Oceania, and even in very remote South America. But it wasn't until the late 20th century that nearly complete saber-toothed tiger skeletons were discovered in some naturally occurring predator traps that scientists began to become truly familiar with the animal.
Many people see a saber-toothed tiger with a "tiger" word, and always think that it must be a tiger, but in fact it is not a tiger. The Latin scientific name for saber-toothed tigers is "machairodus", a completely separate subfamily of saber-toothed tigers, which is a general term for the entire saber-toothed tiger subfamily.
Fossil evidence has been unearthed that saber-toothed tiger refers to a variety of different species, saber-toothed tigers such as swift sword tiger genus, hetero-bladed tiger genus, blade-toothed tiger genus and so on. They lived at different times of the Cenozoic Era, each evolving canine teeth like a sword.
According to the Journal of Man and Nature, the available evidence shows that in addition to being called "tiger", the only common denominator with the tiger is that it belongs to the same cat family, and it has a parallel evolutionary relationship with the leopard subfamily in which the tiger belongs, not the relationship between ancestors and descendants.
Cats are a family of carnivorous and cat-type suborders, the most primitive cats are called protocats, and their weight is generally only 10-20 kg. About 20-10 million years ago, the original cat slowly evolved into a false cat, and most species in this taxon slowly became extinct, leaving only 2, one is the four-toothed false cat, which is the ancestor of the saber-toothed tiger subfamily.
Another type of fake cat living in East Asia evolved into a real cat. All extant cats, from tigers to cats, belong to the real cat class.
It can be seen that in the late stage of the evolution of false cats, saber-toothed tigers parted ways with real cats, including tigers, saber-toothed tigers and real cats went their separate ways, and their relationship with tigers was farther than domestic cats.
Saber-toothed tigers may be very different from everyone's imagination, the real saber-toothed tiger does not have a mighty height, nor does it have unique skills, the body structure is flat, and in general, in the entire saber-toothed tiger subfamily they belong to the conservative and moderate species.
An adult saber-toothed tiger usually weighs about 180-400 kg, has a body length of more than 2 meters, and a shoulder height of about 1 meter, which is almost the same size as a Holocene tiger.
In appearance, saber-toothed tigers differ from tigers in that they have a narrower skull and cervical vertebrae, shorter hind legs and tail, appear top-heavy, and look more like a lean bear with a strong physique.
It is really pitiful to say that although the saber-toothed tiger's large mouth can open to more than 90 degrees, more than most cats today, its jaw is very fragile, and the bite force is only 1/3 of that of lions.
However, the real strength of the people is not in the mouth, their neck, shoulders, forelimbs and front paws are very thick and thick bones, from this point it can be seen that the saber-toothed tiger is a muscular power hunter.
In order to make the jaw and the skull form an angle of more than 90 degrees, the skull and some muscles of the head of the saber-toothed tiger also change accordingly, so that the mouth can be opened wider, so that the role of the saber teeth can be effectively exerted.
As we all know, the important attack weapon of predators is the teeth, which are constantly differentiated in function, and each tooth plays its own role, gradually forming a system with a clear division of labor.
One of the biggest signs of the saber-toothed tiger's appearance is the upper canine teeth that stick out of its mouth, which are much larger than the fangs of modern wild boars. The straight-line distance of the upper canine teeth of adult individuals from the crown of the teeth to the root of the teeth is generally about 12 cm, and the maximum length can reach 26 cm, and the shape is slender and curved, like a machete; the sides are very thin, the edges are sharp, and like two sharp daggers, cold and shining, hidden killing machine.
Because the teeth are particularly long, even if the mouth is closed, the teeth will protrude from the corners of the mouth on both sides, which looks very scary, appearing more terrifying, exaggerated, weird, and even somewhat fantastical.
There have been various explanations for the function of saber teeth, and scholars have debated about it, which has left researchers scratching their heads. Some schools believe that saber teeth are used as daggers, saber-toothed tigers can close their mouths and pierce the thick skin of prey with saber teeth protruding from the mouth; some scholars believe that saber teeth can cut through the soft abdomen of large animals and cause huge bleeding wounds; and even more believe that they can only cut through decaying corpses, which are of little use except for handsomeness.
The current mainstream view is that saber teeth are mainly weapons used against large animals, and that the huge saber teeth allow saber-toothed tigers to hunt bison, rhinos, and even elephants. Such a special and long canine tooth can only be killed deep into the body of the prey with only one pair, and the wound can be enlarged as much as possible, causing a large amount of bleeding from the prey and death.
Saber-toothed tigers are very fierce when they prey on food. It will patiently lurk in the grass of the prey for a long time, quietly observing the prey on the side.
When the prey approached, when the prey did not pay attention, it roared violently, and the hind legs slammed hard, and the whole body came out, and the front paws stood high, and the claw tips were extended, like a short hook, opening a huge mouth, and pounced on the prey. Use their strong forelimbs to pounce on their prey and press them to the ground.
When the prey is still struggling and not in full control, the saber-toothed tiger does not easily use its secret weapon. Once the prey loses its ability to resist, the saber-toothed tiger will use its full body weight to pierce the thick skin of two dagger-like teeth, insert them into the arteries of the prey, and kill the prey.
Because the teeth are too long to be pulled out, the saber-toothed tiger bites firmly and does not let go, and the pain makes the prey struggle desperately. But the more you struggle, the larger the wounds caused by the front paws and teeth, the more blood is shed, and in a short period of time, the prey will die of exhaustion. After the prey has no breath, they slowly enjoy a good meal.
Due to the muscular forelimbs of the saber-toothed tiger, as long as the prey is thrown down, it can use its teeth to pierce the throat of the animal, and using this trick, the saber-toothed tiger runs rampant in the mainland region.
In the past, it was widely believed that saber-toothed tigers, as a ferocious hunter, would usually hunt for large herbivores such as bison, three-toed horses, elephants, etc. in open grasslands or low and sparse bushlands, which were his delicacies.
Some newly unearthed fossils show that saber-toothed tigers also like to prey on baby elephants around 2 years old, and young elephants of this age are naughty and playful, often away from the strict protection of their mothers and elephants, and are the easiest to hunt.
After analyzing hundreds of saber-tooth fossils unearthed in the Labree asphalt pond in California, Lasa DeSantis, a paleontologist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, found that the saber-toothed tiger's living habits were very different from what people had previously known.
His study, published in Contemporary Biology, suggests that the saber-toothed tiger may have been an animal that lived in the forest and fed mainly on animals such as herbivorous deer, rather than on the steppe bison.
Whether saber-toothed tigers like to eat bison or deer, the question is no longer important. Importantly, it ruled the entire Pleistocene, and their existence wiped out herbivores, especially large herbivores.
Some people asked, from the perspective of physical data, the weight and length of the Siberian tiger and the saber-toothed tiger are similar, but if the two tigers can meet and compete together, there will be one death, who will die? Obviously, it should be the Siberian tiger that died, do you know why?
Snow Spirit Valley Animal Lab/Production References: Journal of Man and Nature, Journal of Science Grand View Garden, China Science Daily, China Forestry Network