Channel4.com Text Only

[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]

Big Monster Dig

Sabre tooths in Spain

Sabre tooths in Spain | Homotherium: a lion among sabre tooths | Resources

Homotherium: a lion among sabre tooths
Sabre-toothed cats are among the most famous fossil mammals, but most of our ideas about them come from Smilodon, a short-tailed American sabre tooth with huge upper canines. There were many different kinds of sabre tooth cats and one of the most successful was the lion-sized Homotherium, often called the dirk-toothed or scimitar-toothed cat.

The canine teeth of Homotherium were flattened from side to side with serrated edges, and a deepened chin meant that its upper canines did not protrude beyond the lower margin of the lower jaw. Homotherium was clearly a formidable predator, but exactly how it hunted and killed its prey remains controversial. It used to be thought that sabre tooths were specialized predators of giant mammals such as mammoths and ground sloths and, while some evidence does indicate that Homotherium and other sabre tooths could kill such prey, it now seems that they mostly preyed on medium-sized hoofed mammals like camels and horses.

First discovery
First discovered in England in the 19th century, Homotherium has since been discovered in Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. There were several species but all of the European fossils belong to Homotherium latidens, the species first described by famous anatomist Sir Richard Owen in 1846.

Late survival
In North America, Homotherium survived until only 10,000 years ago. Evidence suggesting that Homotherium survived in Europe until 30,000 years ago comes from a 16-centimetre-long statuette discovered in Isturitz, France. This appears to be an accurate life-portrait of Homotherium, providing it with a pale underbelly and dark spots on its back and sides.

The late survival of Homotherium in Europe was confirmed in 2003, when a jaw dredged from the North Sea was carbon dated to 28,000 years ago. Homotherium must therefore have been cold-tolerant because most of northern Europe was covered by an ice sheet at that time. However, Homotherium also dwelt in temperate and tropical environments, so it was clearly a highly adaptable cat.

Walk like a bear ...
Because Homotherium combines the anatomical traits of several different kinds of cats, experts have argued over how it lived and hunted. Because its hind limbs and ankle bones are short for a cat, some experts thought that it walked like a bear, with the whole of its foot flat on the ground (called plantigrade, this is also the way we humans walk). If this were the case Homotherium might have been a rather slow-moving predator unable to chase prey quickly over long distances.

... or run like a cat?
This has turned out to be incorrect and Homotherium probably walked and ran on its toes like other cats. Furthermore, its forelimbs were long and slender, and its claws could not be fully retracted into protective sheaths. These features are shared with cheetahs, so it's possible that Homotherium was an extremely fast sprinter – quite a contrast to the bear-like model!

The idea that Homotherium possessed sprinting abilities is also supported by its huge nasal opening, which suggests that it could breathe in extra oxygen compared to other cats, a feature beneficial to a fast runner. The visual cortex of Homotherium's brain, meanwhile, appears to have been especially large and complex, a feature supposedly correlated with good day (rather than night) vision.

Social life
We know next to nothing about the social life of Homotherium. A cave site in Texas appears to represent a den where adults brought food to the cubs. Sabre tooths may have hunted singly, in pairs, or in small groups, and studies suggest that they killed prey by pinning them down before administering a lethal throat bite.

Top of page

Graphical version

[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Access Advice ]

[ HTML 4.01 TR Approved ]