Paleo Catalog: Smilodon (Saber Tooth Cat)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 มิ.ย. 2024
- #PaleoAnalysis
This is my first video in a new series where I'll be doing a deep dive into everything there is to know about a specific long extinct animal. From their evolution to their extinction and just what made them so unique. I will even be giving a hands on look at the skull of many species!
In this episode, I will be looking at one of the most iconic animals from the Ice Age. Smilodon, the Saber Tooth Cat!
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Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
0.46 Unique Predator
2:07 Evolution
6:04 A Closer Look
13:27 Tar Pits
16:23 Extinction
18:01 Outro
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Special thanks to Benjamin R. Langlois for the thumbnail/video artwork!
to see more of his artwork, follow him on Instagram: / b.r.l_qc.paleoart
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Maybe I'm biased being Australian, but I'd like to see a deep dive on the marsupial lion. It was even more tanky than the sabretooth iirc. I think one of it's ancestors possibly mated with a Sherman tank.
The animals of Tazmania that died off a century ago alone were insanely unique! As a lizard fan your country is a paradise to me. Frilled, Beardies, Water Dragons, monitors, it would never get old. Doesn't get much cooler than a Dingo either when it comes to modern decendants of the wolf. I would love to see them in person
@@DigitalDuelist funny, was petting a dingo down the zoo not long ago. Can confirm they are very cute
Our bird population is pretty awesome as well, like I've seen 7 or 8 kinds of parrots or whatever fancy term there is for them in my garden alone and I don't even know how many more on my travels. All sorts of birds of prey etc as well.
@@DigitalDuelist *Tasmania (only correcting you because I live there, not being pedantic for the sake of being one of those sorts of people on YT)
@@relwalretep nah that's still being pedantic.
And an equally scary set of dentition too!
What you said at the end really made me think, smilodons prey started to go extinct around 11,000 years ago. That is not very long at all. There have been ruins discovered that old, and modern humans have been around since long before then. That's just kind of wild to think about.
Its also kind of wild of the idea of dinosaurs not being millions of years old and are thousands of years old, who really knows what scientists are hiding or what kind of false information we are given.
@@julievonhaeften8323 R u religious?
@@julievonhaeften8323 Nice bait.
@@julievonhaeften8323Yeah but really no. 🤡
Though their main prey was Bison which is one of the few American megafauna that didn't go extinct.
I’ve never been into paleontology and I’m not sure why it was recommended to me. But, I gave your videos a chance and have loved them ever since! You sparked an interest in a topic I would’ve never thought I’d be so fascinated by. Thank you.
I love Smilodon but personally I also admired the ice age lions of Europe and the Americas also !
It was actually one of the first fossil mammals I got to know: nl in a European set cartoon about cavemen of which one of them had it as a companion, actually a smilodon with a long tail, only later I understood that the Smilodon was not European and did have a bobtail. The comic was called Tounga and edited in Belgium.
Saber tooth was no match for megatherium 💪
@@MybeautifulandamazingPrincess True or the short faced bear
@@krissmonte6374 the short faced bear is also gone
@@Whosaskin yup, sabertooths short faced bears and a ton of other animals suddenly died out because of a mass extinction event that was the biggest one in the past 5 million years
Idea of a pack hunting cat is a very strange one in today's climate, and equally as terrifying lol, interesting stuff!
a lot of people may think it's obvious because of Lions
@@Svensk7119 Or domestic cats.
@@danielawesome36 Or any other cats...
Because lions faced unique environment and challenges they developed ways to combat that with forming prides: a single lion taking on herbivores in Africa can easily get them killed, I imagine a group of smilodons would have grouped up on giant camels or mammoths likewise. It also helps them secure kills versus other group predators and they can defend each other. A lot of pressure was put on lions to strictly form prides for hunting and survival, while leopards are faster ambush cats and exceptionally good at climbing to escape danger.
I never thought about the problems those teeth might cause. All I ever saw was giant scary teeth. Kinda silly that it never occurred to me that they would need to open their mouths so wide to even use those things.
I just found your channel and I'm enjoying binging your videos!
would it need to open its mouth at all though? most of the tooth is exposed past its chin, could solve most of the problems i think
@@Svensk7119 No it wouldn't. It could keep its mouth shut and drive the exposed part of the canines in and out of its quarry, repeatedly, causing massive bleeding and internal damage. Populator's canines reached a foot in length, and they had very flat lower jaws. So we're talking about 9 inches (that's what she said.) of closed-jaw canines that could be plunged deep inside (that's what she said) populator's victims. In fact, one populator skull has 16 inch canines!
@@Svensk7119 They were strong enough for quick plunges. The video said that they would hold off on using their teeth until they had immobilized their quarry, which they were quite capable of doing, as the most powerful "cat" to ever roam the earth.
@@Cosmo-Kramer hahahaha!!!! Best comment EVER- & very informative!!🙂🙂
Attacking big animals is dangerous and so the safest way to do it is to catch them off guard and deal as much damage as possible in one good hit and that's what Smilodon is specialized to do. Lions actually rarely take big dangerous animals cause they usually have to use an enormous amount of energy to bring them down and the risk of serious injury is very high. When you have animals like lions and wolves one thing they often struggle with is dealing enough damage quickly enough to actually kill it.
I actually would think Smilodon would have quite a low success rate while hunting. That it had a very all-or-nothing sort of strategy. That if it failed to bring it down within the first minute it usually would run since again big animals are dangerous.
Also the biggest advantage of pack behavior is actually social insurance which is important when hunting dangerous animals. Being part of a pack means you can take a lot of risks since if you get hurt you have a family to nurse you back to health.
If they ever resurrect them through a DNA sample, you know people would go "big cat, must pet", and I'd be happy with that
Hahaha!! Completely agree!!!🙂🙂
I’m willing to die to pet them.
The specialist/generalist thing is so true about people in the professional world too. People who hyper-specialize tend to be the most in-demand employees, but when an industry changes they're hit the hardest. Meanwhile "jack of all trades" types tend to be middling in terms of marketability and income, but they have the easiest time to adapt to new economic or industrial trends.
Excellent presentation.
Hopefully you could do something similar regarding other Pleistocene predators such the American Lion and short faced bear.
I absolutely can and already have skull casts for Short Faced Bear, Dire Wolf and American Lion. So I can do it with those for comparison.
American cheetah!
its crazy to think most of today's animals were around back then too, its just that all the big ones died out. For me the saddest ones are the ground sloths, giant anteaters are one of the few animals that can fight off a jaguar and have similar builds to ground sloths. So many of today's animals are just holdovers from that time, pronghorns, polar bears, musk ox, wolverines, and even many plants like avocados. Just leftovers from long gone ecosystems, the same thing still happens today the some species are running away from ghosts.
Well said!!🙂❤️ (I LOVE giant anteaters- they are featured alot on a show called “Secret Lives of the ZOO”!)
What's crazy is that sometimes they prey species of these large predators survive with the evolutionary traits they needed to survive being hunted. We have Deer run as fast as a cheetah because cheetahs existed in America before the last Ice Age. They died off but the deer remain and are still lightning fast.
@@DigitalDuelist That's what the original commenter mentioned - pronghorns. They're not deer though, they're actually more closely related to giraffids. In fact they're the only surviving member of their clade; in a sense they're a remnant of the Pleistocene themselves.
its strange in north america that 13 out of 14 species of pronghorn antelope, animals that when compared to bison elk and moose are much lighter, way more agile, and much faster, all died out yet animals that are much easier to spot and catch like bison, elk and moose are still alive
@@21LAZgoo Elk and bison didn’t have it all good though. There were plenty of species of bison in the past in North America alone, and some of them were much bigger than the modern bison. A lot of these species died out by the end of the glacial period, leaving one species in North America and one species in Europe.
@1:55 I love the four-way split with three intimidating big cats and then a random house cat stalking around someone's backyard
The social predator theory makes a lot of sense given that social predators that hunt large prey usually have excessive weaponry to deal with excessively large targets, and are usually highly offense-oreiented because individuals within the pack will momentarily disengage to counter enemy attacks while their comrades continue their own attacks, instead of defending or tanking the attack. They also can afford to take more damaging hits because they don't individually starve if they can't hunt. Given prey animals usually don't have effective omnidirectional attacks, that's a pretty good strategy.
Examples include:
African wild dogs: Most flesh-cutting molars and highest relative bite strength of the dogs.
Wolves: bite strength high for their size.
Social insects: Stings and formic sprays that can hurt things many times their size. Often formidable jaws as well.
Hyenas: again with the crazy biteforce.
Humans: extreme threat to megafauna using bladed flint and obsidian projectiles.
By the way. Some paleontologists theorize that Smilodon had massive lips to hide their long dagger fangs due to a cave painting discovered by explores. What do you think, are their theories scientifically plausible?
Considering the chompers mammals like hippos and baboons can conceal…yeah, it seems at least plausible.
It is believed that an animal known as Thylacosmilus, an extinct marsupial from South America had large canine teeth much like Smilodon, had big lips which hid the teeth when their mouth was closed. Someone else already mentioned that some modern day mammals like hippos and baboons have big lips that hide their huge canine teeth, so yes I would say it could definitely be possible. Who knows? This is where I really wish we could through a time portal like the one on Nigel Marven’s Prehistoric Park and find out.
Big lips?? That wouldn't look nearly as cool, wtf?! I suppose next you're gonna say Smilodon had feathers! STOP raping my childhood!
@@Cosmo-Kramer This is trolling done right.
I know they figured that for Homotherium, but didn't see anything for Smilodon's sabers being covered by lips. Mammalian enamel doesn't need to be constantly bathed, unlike sauropsid enamel.
Fascinating stuff. I'm so interested in the rest of this series. Great work compiling, editing, and narrating all of this information in such an easy-to-understand format.
I think your videos are awesome. I think a really cool topic for a video would be the Short-Faced Bear, the Entelodonts, and Hyaenadon.
There was this one guy who said "Among the engineers, I am the best cook, and among the cooks I am the best engineer." He was not a master of the craft at either one of them, but his point still stands. I guess we can say that only during stable times speciliziation is a good thing, but sadly we never know when those times come to an end.
Thanks for the video and your channel, loving it! I'd love to see you do a piece on the Australian Thylacoleo Carnifex, otherwise known as the marsupial lion. Keep up the good work my friend.
Watching again for my upcoming Smilodon fatalis reconstruction!
I have seen complete Smilodon skeletons in person at the LaBrea Museum in Los Angeles. It is a fabulous museum. It is a MUST SEE.
Smilodon is a interesting saber toothed cat but I'd really, really, love to hear more about Xenosmilus Hodsonae. Who was more likely larger than smilodon populator and unlike smilodon which had long yet narrower saber teeth that could theoretically break, Xenosmilus's saber teeth were long and robust. It's a sabertooth cat with a bite like a great white shark. So it was bigger with more massive and thick teeth. Called the cookie-cutter cat because it bit chunks out of its prey and could just wait while prey bled out or went into shock. There isn't much else I know about this 'cat' but would love to know more about this massive predator.
I hope the momentum keeps going for you. I'm glad I found this channel.
Great video! One of my favourite Pleistocene mammals! How about a video focusing on Mulituburculates?
I'd like to see a deep dive on all prehistoric big cats (and maybe cheetahs). The Pleistocene was a golden age for them and and love to hear your take on it!
I went to the La Brea tar pits as a child and was so enamored I wasted a fortune on a totally unused degree. But Mr. Smiley was def on my top 5s at age 8. I just found your channel, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge with all of us 🌈
I loved that you showed some skulls! Puts in a very clear light how different both animals were function and size.
Loving your channel! Keep up the good work!
A solid, thorough examination of the subject. Your speaking is engaging and well written. Great work!
You bring up the barborofelids (forgive my lack of spelling/mishearing), go on, and they say that you'll talk about the other "macheradontid(sp?) sabertooth cats that we won't talk about right now, and possibly have a seperate video on them - I would love a separate video on them, and know what mad ethe barborofelids different. I absolutely understand that you can't let people think that what you're talking about was the only thing like it... and yet name dropping different creatures makes me want to know more.... I did read _The Dinosaur Heracies_ (Bakker is the author, I believe) cover to cover, twice, the year it came out (I was in middle school), so I think I can argue to being a paleo nerd...
I would also like to say that I'm really glad that you say you'd "love people to subscribe" rather than the much more pushy directions from many other you-tubers. There are those who I will actually never subscribe to, because of how they mention that request. You're a cool dude, talking about cool stuff - glad you're here.
Love this channel. Studying all life forms back to beginning of life on this planet really opens the mind. Raises so many environmental & other questions even for nonscientific people. My personal favorite extinct animal is Australian thylacine who dies just as begin reliably recording species. Maybe an episode on extinct Marsupial predators. Don't really know what thylacine evolved to hunt. Thanks.
This was an absolutely awesome video. Thank you, PA.
New subscriber here, and I’ve only caught a handful of your vids so far, but I’m really digging(pun intended) what you’re doing. Really great, insightful and fascinating stuff. Keep up the good work :)
binging your videos...love them all🤩
Fascinating! Thanks for another great video!
Most cat species (there are exceptions) seem to be built to kill their prey quickly. Even our domestic cats are built for this. Not only are their canines long enough to reach the spinal column of the rodents they prey on, the gap between them is sized so that when the teeth go in, they slide between the vertebrae and prise them apart, severing the spinal cord. Their canines are also sharp enough to pierce the skulls of small mammals. I know this because I had a collection of skulls of animals that one of my long passed on cats brought home from his hunting trips. I had bird skulls, squirrel skulls, rabbit skulls and even a hedgehog skull, but the most valued were a pair of weasel or stoat skulls. I got the skulls by burying the bodies in the back garden and leaving them for a year which was usually long enough to clean the skeletons. What was surprising about the weasel skulls was that both had circular depressed skull fractures, in the centre of which was a single small round hole. Neither body showed signs of other damage, so I assume that Tabby ( the cat's name) must have grabbed the animal and bit down straight away. As to where he found them, he was a veteran rabbit hunter, and the railway bank at the bottom of our garden was a massive rabbit warren. I guess he met those unfortunate weasels whilst he and they were hunting the same stretch of warren
I love the stuff! Thank you!
Thank you. This is a very interesting and nicely done video.
Smildon fatalis easily my favorite animal all time
Fantastic video, thanks
Excellent, and informative video. I get shivers imagining a mob of bear-shaped cats the size of a lion.
What do you think of DeSantis et al (2012)? This study found little evidence to support declining prey was a major factor in the extinction of Smilodon.
I'd love to see more information on spinosaurus. Such a unique animal with a convoluted history of being studied. It's my favorite dinosaur ❤
Wow I have learned so much! I always swondered how they uses their big teeth! Thank you!
Dude, I love your videos. Greetings from Argentina!
I love what you have said this is really good keep up the good work friend
Love your channel mate!
Felis sylvestris. I have 3. One elderly and two less than a year old. They are incredibly observant, clever and are good problem solvers. I wish I could train both of the young cats to scratch only where I want them to but ....well...I'm working on it. Raising these kittens is almost exactly like raising a 2 year old. They reach for new things; they explore new things, they eat new things (my medications and packets of silicone packets) and everything is a toy...my earphones. My computer keyboard. My toes. They make and maintain eye contact. If they are gently nudged away from mischief, they will pretend that they are innocent and compliant....for about 20 seconds. I love them for their encroachments and transgressions. I love that they jump on my lap and demand my attention. they do wonders for my mental health and for my blood pressure
Enjoyed this video, would love to see you do one on the Entelodonts I saw pictured here a few times, and possibly the evolution of the Ursine family. :D
This was really watchable lol loved it 🙏🏼👊🏻
Excellent video brother 🤟🏾🖤
Great documentary, thanks.
Hope to see your channel grow fast
Love this channel, just discovered it. You have a great style and presence. Keep at it and don’t get too specialized…
LOVE the black hills institute in the very beginning, seriously one of my favorite fossil collections ever
G'day.
Have watched 2 episodes. Good work and good luck.
After studying the fauna of the pre ice age America's and Europe I became convinced that every child's inherent, irrational fear of "monsters" is rooted in very real and scary history where we were on the menu of large cats and cave bears.
I never had that growing up. Maybe my lineage were the ones that tried taming these fur babies.
I would say it's for precisely that reason, although with the caveat that it's not simply a relic of prehistory, it very much applies to modern fauna too. It's an inherent fear of being consumed, something instinctual. When I was kid, I was afraid of monsters generally, but more specifically wolves (or rather, our mytho-cultural concept of them, passed down to me through tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and the like). I was afraid of being eaten.
Great video brother
Hey man I love this channel good luck with it
Nice can't wait to see more.
Great video and well done!
❤️ u & this channel; thank you, in advance, for the series
You are very welcome, and thank you for the support! ☺️
Do you have any suggestions for a future episode?
@@PaleoAnalysis Koolasuchus for the amphibians, but an exploration of Diplo-amphibians also welcome (why did they evolve boomerang shaped heads ?), early sailback reptiles such as Dimetrodon and Edaphosaurus (which of the sail purpose theories do you agree with ?), and Dunkleosteus for the prehistoric fish, although there are already many Dunkleosteus videos.
Great video!
My new favorite channel.
Well done!
5:42 A little complaint here. Panthera Atrox is now put at 290-351 kg. That was the outdated estimate of the biggest male
Good work.
Very helpful & interesting- I didn’t realize all the differences there were between the species/classifications!!! 🙂🙂❤️ ….yet slightly dry at times, like my Paleobiology professor at KU!! :)
Shut it, nerd!
Wonderful video
I love cats, I’d love to watch any videos you do on ancient cat species!
Nice educational video!
Great vid!
That was awesome!
Good stuff thank you
Loved it....
Your channel is so cool.
I already heard about the reason they died out was that their prey died out. But this is the first time I heard they might live and hunt in packs.
Every day you can learn something new. And this tima it was a very cool something.
good stuff man!
Spinosaur especially with the new discoveries about the tail section would be a great video
great video. love cats . all cats. good information
Love the cats. Any size, shape, color, or extinction status.
Hey there. Love your channel and have blinged it over the last few days. Just one question where do you get your maps of the world like in this video from 16 million years ago. Cheers
Just came across your channel and I am very excited about it. Regards the pack hunting theory, could it also be that the Smilodon who survived injury did so because they came across a place where their prey was sitting waiting for them?
I would like to see you talk about the Devonian era. But that's just a suggestion I love the videos I've watched so far.
Love this! More please :)
Yeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhh.
I’m really enjoying your videos. Good concise information though I’m not so sure about Tim-Tim (hope the spelling is correct) although a bit of humour always makes it more fun to learn.
Long before I knew anything at all, before even teenage years, these gargantuan teeth really were bewildering. Figured they'd only be safely deployed as slashing in a dagger-like manner into soft tissues like the abdomen of prey. Going for the neck affords the prey animal some leverage of its forelimbs, and seems risky. In any case, it would pretty much require a pack-hunting cooperation by more than 3 or 4 cats & seems attacks from beneath the prey animals as a necessity. Cooperative hunting is seldom seen among tiger / leopard siblings, unlike prides of lionesses.
Please do a video on Andrewsarchus!!! Truly one of the more odd carnivorous mammals💯
i used to give tours at the la brea tar pits/page museum in L.A. and i'm a major pleistocene geek excellent vid.
i believe smilodon was social and definitely did not have stripes but why they died out while the jaguar and mountain lion remained is a mystery that i don't believe will ever be solved definitely. all anybody has are theories they may try to convince you they know but in the end theories are as good as it gets.
either way even though that branch of the feline family is gone and were only distantly related to pantera leo stripes in general are extremely rare on cats so i defintely vote that one down.
You have no idea what theory means, do you…
@@bryceburns7425 yeah i believe i do.
I would love to see the difference between the smallest smilodon and modern cats. They really remind me of the lynx we have now. Do you have all the smilodon skull models or just the one? The simularites and differences in build would be very interesting also. Love what I am learning from you on all topics.
Ironically I actually just got a S. gracilis skull cast but it is a little messed up and I need to fix it up a bit before it's ready to show off. I will say this species is bigger than a Lynx though. Probably more like a large Puma for scale.
great channel love it
Thank you very much! Let me know if there are any other prehistoric creatures that you would like to see me cover in a future video!
@@PaleoAnalysis Livyatan
Metoposaurus algarvensis would be a neat animal to learn more about.
Thanks mate
I am fascinated by motions and the calicotheres !! They look like a rhino crossed with …. Heaven only knows what !! They say those clawed front feet were for digging. Digging what ??
Maybe it makes more sense that they were for pulling down branches like therozinosaurs or ground sloths.
Anyway, I would love a deep dive into these bizarre creatures.
Everybody gangsta till Sabertooth's homies join the fun.
Great video, first time catching you, got a sub from me, love the work :)
New here. I really liked that
My kitten enjoyed watching this with me
By way of suggestion for topic; Marsupials (I'm Australian), as you mentioned convergent evolution with images of the Tasmanian Tiger (RIP) and the Wolf (resurrected), there is the Australian "Drop Bear" which was closer to a cat than the Tassie Tiger, at least by appearance, or again, by convergent evolution. There were also supersized Platypus, and further back to its early post CT mass extinction the Dinosaur Bird Cassowary, as a hint for dino vocals via that structure on their head, and the Python from central Queensland fossil site once named "Montypythonoides" which would give an Anaconda or a Burmese python a reason to remove themselves from a territorial dispute, back when it were more like the Daintree in ecosystem, wetter, more tropical rainforest, complete with poisonous vegetation ensuring less likelihood of getting eaten, with delayed pain after contact by touch with tiny silica hairs...
Great video! By any chance would you know the relevance of the Smilodon to vertebrate evolution?
Is it just me, or can anybody feel that there is an eye staring at us, through the eye socket of the smilodon skull! Fun optical illusion I will say!
Thank you for teaching and entertaining us with fascinating and well made videos! 👍❤️🦖🦕🦴😁
Would be fun to see some background on ictheosaurus
Good video!
Still in 2022 I can't understand how that mouth was able open enough to be useful.