Sabertooth Tiger
Saber Tooth Tiger: Truth or Legend?
We have all seen depictions of the Ice Age, including the wooly mammoth, huge saber tooth tiger among others. But were the massive beasts from millions of years ago actually tigers?
Fossil remains are all that is left of the mystifying Ice Age of the world’s history. Scientists have long been studying these fossils to unlock and decipher the mysteries of this early ancestry of today’s wildlife. Fossil deposits extracted from tar pits in California and from other excavation sites in South America have proven that the saber tooth tiger was not actually a tiger at all, although they were members of the cat family.
Indeed, the term saber tooth tiger should actually be referred to as the saber tooth mammal, as there are a variety of species that range in size and geographical domain. Some of the fossils found were more of the marsupial than the mammal; resembling opossum and kangaroos. The last known cat to have lived went extinct 9,000 years ago.
Today’s tiger subspecies are the largest in the four classes of “big cats”. Yet the so called saber tooth tiger of yesteryear were quite small in comparison; measuring around 2 ½ feet tall, or about the same size as a bobcat of today. Despite the smaller stature, they did have heavier and incredibly powerful body frames, and possessed a bob tail rather than the long, balancing tail of the big cats we know.
The reason for the immense teeth is a matter of debate among scientists. Some feel that the teeth were instrumental in obtaining a death grip hold on its prey. This theory, however, has its flaws in that the teeth would have snapped and broken; a fact that is not borne out of the fossil deposits.
Other scientists believe a more credible theory of the use of the saber tooth tiger canines. With smaller bodies that were extremely powerful, it is widely felt that the cat would lie in wait for prey; springing out upon it and using the teeth to rip devastating wounds to the belly or throat of the prey. Extensive studies have been done on the skull and teeth of this animal that would support this latter theory.
Certainly the more common image of saber tooth tiger comes to mind for most people when imagining this cat; immense, hulking creatures with curved canines almost reaching the ground. Truth tells us that, while truly fierce predators, the cats were actually about the size of bobcats, with the longest canines measuring about ½ foot. While the truth may be less dramatic than the legend, the proof in the fossil remains has given scientists a great deal of information to help decipher one of history’s biggest mysteries of the Ice Age.