There is no doubt that the saber tooth cat or known as the Smilodon lived and hunted in the the open, dry lands of the North America but there is no clear evidence that they also roamed the South American planes, until now a new research led by Professor Herve Bocherens, suggests that like the lion which today lives in the African savannah, the saber tooth cat inhabited the open.dry country found in South America during ice age.
The researchers examined that the saber tooth cats did not eat animals which were at home in thickly wooded country. Their chief prey seems tp have been a camel-like, steppe-dwelling ungulate known to scientists as Macrauchenia, and two species of giant sloth (Megatherium and Lestodon) - who unlike their surviving relatives, lived on the ground and could grow to several tonnes in weight. Several individual bones of the saber tooth cats were found together and contained similar isotopes which suggests that they may hunt togetger in group.
The researchers examined that the saber tooth cats did not eat animals which were at home in thickly wooded country. Their chief prey seems tp have been a camel-like, steppe-dwelling ungulate known to scientists as Macrauchenia, and two species of giant sloth (Megatherium and Lestodon) - who unlike their surviving relatives, lived on the ground and could grow to several tonnes in weight. Several individual bones of the saber tooth cats were found together and contained similar isotopes which suggests that they may hunt togetger in group.
The saber tooth cat (Smilodon) evolved in North America and spread to South America with the formation of a stable land bridge between the two continents some three million years ago. It appears that the saber tooth cat's fiercest compititors were not other big cats. The study indicates that the jaguar preffered smaller prey, such as rodents and species of horse. But the ice age dog (Protocyon) seems to have shared the saber tooths culinary tastes.
Source: University of Tubingen
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