WHAT KILLED THE SABRE-TOOTH CATS?

Sabre-tooth cats, one of the most fearsome cats of all time, rule the land of the North America in the ice age. They are the top predator of the land of North America in the Ice Age. Huge preys like the Bison, horses are the main prey of the Sabre-Tooth Cat. The normal temperature of the North America never exceeded more than 40 degree in the complete Ice age era. In that time most probably the land of North America is not like this. Most probably the places are not dry and there exist huge forests with big trees and grasslands. This forest and the grasslands create huge covers for the Sabre-Tooth Cats to hunt. If we see the bone structure of the Sabre-Tooth Cat, we find that, the sabre-tooth cats are much heavier than other big cats of today. This indicates they are much slower than today’s cat. So they must be much more dependent on their sneak attack. So the covers from the grasslands and the forests with huge trees are very much in favour of them – That makes the Sabre-tooth cat the top predator of the entire North America in the ice age.

Now we are entering 12,000 years ago from today. The time is changing. It is the End of the Ice age era. The climate is changing rapidly. The ice is melting rapidly. The forestland with huge trees and grasslands become the place of much drier open field with short grasses. That is making the most of the herbivorous megafauna migrate. But surprisingly one megafauna is looking like very much adoptable with this environmental change – It is the Bison. And actually in this new environmental condition the bison are more comfortable and their population increases in those open field.

After ruling the North America, now suddenly the Sabre-tooth is losing its grip in the wild. In fact they are decreasing rapidly. In the time of the ice age the maximum temperature never crossed 40 degree, but now the temperature is much higher, the lands become drier; the big land forests and the grasslands are gone. These cause a huge problem to the sabre-tooth cat to hunt. We know the sabre-tooth cats hunting completely depends on the fact that how much they are capable of being camouflaged. Since all the big tree forests and grasslands are now gone and they are replaced by the open fields, Sabre-tooth cats are losing their chance of being unseen. We can simply say the climate is betraying the Sabre-tooth cats in these days. Also the numbers of the Bison population increasing now – This gives the bison herds a lot of more pairs of eyes to watch their backs. So they can see the cat from a long distance and can run away. Sabre-tooth cat figure is not built to chase down a prey and hunt it down, as they are much slower than modern world cheetah, lions, tigers etc.

This new world makes the Sabre-tooth cats food less. They started to decrease from the world only because of the food. In their last days, the sabre-tooth cats lived a life where they can see their prey standing not too far from them but still out of their reach.

The last sabre-tooth cat – a female cat, most probably has two kids. She tried to hunt bison for many times but failed every time. Then she abandoned its kids and travelled long for food. It finally reaches the La Brea Tar Pit and sees some dead or trapped animals. She entered the tar pit and got trapped in the tar and died there.

The Last Sabre-Tooth Cat died like this and The Sabre-Tooth Cat extinct from the world.