ExtinctZoo - The Worst Creature To Run Into During The Ice Age

Episode Date: August 31, 2024

The Ice Age was no doubt one of earth’s most questionable phases, being a very brutal time that led to brutal animals, and sometimes these animals were so ferocious that they made other monsters seem a bit dull, one such animal that did this was the Smilodon.

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. To become an Apex Predator, one thing you must be is a predator. It's in the name, after all. And because an Apex predator means that you're king in your environment, it's not crazy to say that some predators have it good. But if life was so good for the top dogs, then why are predators seldom bigger than their prey. Well, the answer has to do with the fact that herbivores get their energy straight from the energy

producers themselves, while carnivores have to rely on getting their share through the herbivores, which usually ends up with them receiving just 10% of what the herbivore originally received from the producer, leading to predators having smaller sizes on average. This size difference has led to evolution giving predators a wide array of menacing tools and weapons in order to help even the playing field. Such traits have included things like a powerful bite, razor-sharp claws, and pack hunting. And clearly it's worked out well, as many predators are able to take down prey much bigger than themselves.

But once in a blue moon, a carnivore comes along that takes the ability of big game hunting to the extreme, developing weapons solely designed for giants alone. And only a few thousand years ago, there was one kitty cat roaming the earth that had perfected this art. This was the king of the Ice Age. In other words, the Smilodon. Thanks to its striking appearance in giant saber teeth, the Smilodon is one of those extinct animals that nearly everyone knows, or at least recognizes. A situation helped by its portrayal in famous movies such as Ice Age.

And yet despite the world knowing it's a cat, it did not start out this way, as when it was first discovered over 160 years ago in Brazil, paleontologists first thought that it was an extremely large hyena. This misplaced judgment was based on isolated cheek teeth, which heavily resembled those seen in living hyenas. and soon enough, this new animal was dubbed hyena Nio-Gaya. However, luckily for the Smalodon's legacy, it was quickly found out that there were much more fossils laying around than just some teeth. And within a couple of years, dozens of new body parts were identified, including footbones, skull material, and giant canines that seemed almost too big for this creature's mouth. With these additional bones, they could also tell that this had never been a hyena, but rather a distinct genus of Felid that was undeniably giant in stature, and far more about. bust than any known modern cat. With this in mind, paleontologists decided to rename it to Smilodon

Populator, with the Smilodon portion meaning knife-tooth after its giant teeth, while Populator supposedly translates into the destroyer, or he who brings devastation, a fitting species name considering the lethalness of this predator. Along with a name change, the reclassification led to more research into what kind of feel it the Smilodon was exactly, a task that has continued to this day, with paleontologists currently placing it in the now extinct subfamily, the Macaerodontene, which contains the vast majority of what people often call saber-toothed tigers, although a more fitting nickname is saber-toothed cats, as this group is not closely related to tigers or any other living cat for that matter, with perhaps their closest relatives being members of the Filene

family. Within the Miccarodontanei, Smilodon was further classified as being a Smilodontany member, who have their very own moniker, the Dirk-toothed cats. So far, this is only known to house five different genera, making it a rather lonely group. Yet, over the years it has grown in size, but not through the discovery of new genera, but rather by the discovery of new Smilodon species, as older remains were eventually found in North America that were assigned to two different species, resulting in there being three accepted types of Smilodon today, the Populatore, Fatalis, and Grassless. If you were being chased by any one of them, you'd probably not care which was which, nor be able to tell them apart.

But they did have their differences, with one of the biggest contrasts being when they lived. Grassilus was the oldest of the bunch, having evolved in North America from the older Megantarian approximately 2.5 million years ago. The second oldest, Fatalus, came along about 1 million years later, followed finally by the Populitor, who appeared about 600,000 years after the Fatalus. Another area where the three differed was in size, as each new iteration was larger than the last, and therefore Grassliss was the smallest, while Populotaur was the giant of the three. Don't get it twisted, though, because ultimately each of these three species were pretty huge by cat standards,

with certain specimens actually making the Smilodon one of the largest known phyllids to date. Presently, paleontologists believed that Grasslis was likely the same weight as a Jaguar, the third largest cat on earth today. Meanwhile, Fatalis was a bit bigger, with individuals having similar dimensions to that of an African lion. However, they were much heavier on average due to the more muscular build, with their weight being around 280 kilos or 620 pounds, which makes it equivalent to large tigers,

the biggest current fuel that we have, discounting hybrids. But things get even more hectic when you move on to the Populitor, who was ridiculously large, with the bigger bones we know of, namely an exceptional skull, indicating a max body size of around 470 kilos or 1,040 pounds, so about the same weight as a medium-sized polar bear, Earth's current largest terrestrial carnivore. And the nice thing about the Smilodon is that most studies find that it didn't have a high level of sexual dimorphism,

meaning males and females were usually around the same size. In other words, there were a lot of large individuals, and given its size, it's widely accepted to have been an apex predator in each of its environments. But the Smilodon wasn't just big, because as mentioned, it was very robust as well. The first sign that this prehistoric cat wasn't interested in small prey. Specifically, Smilodon's had very thick and sturdy bones, that in life would have been roped with large amounts of muscle. The heel bone in particular was quite robust, and not to mention long,

which indicates that the Smilodon was an excellent jumper, who likely used its vertical leap to jump on top a big body. herbivores. And despite no one knowing what its true leaping prowess really was, it's been speculated to have been able to jump higher than the modern lion, who's been observed at times at jumping over 15 feet or 4.5 meters high. Another area where the Smilodon was well built was in its forelimbs. Naturally, all large phelids have powerful forelimbs that are designed to hold down struggling prey. But Smilodon really took this to the next level, as its four limbs were about 20% thicker than what scientists would usually expect of a cat its size.

This gave its forearms ridiculous power that was even greater than that of cats bigger than it, like the American lion, for example. With its shredded forearms, the Smilodon could have easily held down massive prey, and they were further empowered by fully retractable claws. But these claws were not like the claws of a lion or a tiger, because while they were razor-sharp and curved, the Smilodon's claws were proportionally ginormous, as seemingly many things on its body were,

and reconstructions have found them to have been twice the size of the claws of a Siberian tiger and even longer than those of a Codiac brown bear, which is sometimes twice the body weight of a fully grown Smilodon. These claws could have clearly cut straight through flesh, but their size was more of an adaptation for holding down large animals rather than dealing damage, with its true weapon, or damage dealer, being its infamous saber teeth. These iconic weapons are actually not unique to the Smilodon.

and they've appeared in other mammals and even non-mammals multiple times throughout history. This then may make you wonder why the Smilodon is by far the most popular animal with saber-teeth, and the answer is thanks to their length. Just like its claws, its canines were supersized, proportionally speaking. So much so, in fact, that they protruded well out of its mouth, a feature that is quite uncommon in other saber-toothed cats, like the homotherium. These massive saber-teethes could grow to be 8 inches or 20-point-pointeastern. 3 cm long, and thus making them the biggest saber teeth of any known fielded.

But they weren't just for bragging rights, because on top of being long, these canines were well adapted to pierce deep into flesh, with the tops having been a sharp point while the sides were smooth and narrow, and therefore increasingly the amount of force concentrated at the tips, letting the Smilodon create catastrophic puncture wounds. Surprisingly, the design was so efficient that allowed the Smilodon to get away with a not-so-powerful bite. In fact, studies found that it could only bite with the force of 1,000 newtons, four times weaker than the bite of a lion. And this weak bite is also reflected by the durability of the canines, as each was slender and fragile. This just goes to show, though,

that a good piercing weapon doesn't need a lot of force to be effective, but it did make paleontologists wonder how the Smilodon killed, as its teeth wouldn't have been able to simply attack any point in the body. This led to many ideas on the nature of its killing mechanism. with one of the more popular ones being that individuals would have utilized ambushes and dense vegetation to grab or leap onto a prey, which they could then subdue with their claws, allowing them to sink their saber teeth into the prey's soft belly, thus destroying their guts and incurring massive blood loss. While brutal, most have pushed back on this hypothesis,

instead favoring the equally grim idea that Smilodon either used quick-thrusting attacks or a deep bite to wreck a prey's throat, invoking severe blood loss and suffocation amongst other unpleasant symptoms. Further studies also revealed that its jaw could open up to 120 degrees while biting, nearly double that of what's seen in humans, meaning that pretty much every neck out there was on the menu. These teeth combined with its claws made it one fearsome predator, yet it wasn't bronze alone that gave the Smilodon success, as scans of its brain cavity suggested that at a high level of coordination, hearing, an amazing vision,

that was further backed by its eye sockets, as their shape implied binocular vision. And as a cherry on top, they seem to be very fast, too, as a good percentage of Smilodon's had trauma to their sternums, which is generally seen as a result of high-velocity collisions with prey. These traits, combined with its arsenal, allowed the Smilodon to hunt down a wide range of megafaunal prey, which greatly varied depending on where a given Smilodon lived. In North America, for example, species typically hunted giant extinct bison, camels, glyphtherium, peckery, laminoids, and occasional, nationally, mastodons and Colombian mammoths, the largest animals around at the time.

Meanwhile, in South America, prey included toxidontids, lit upturns, various glyptodonts, horses, camelids, and even camins. While we know that some of these animals were definitely prey, based on skeletal evidence, we are less certain on what the main prey was, a question that also depends on if the Smilodon was a social creature or not, as pack hunting would imply larger prey, more often. One of the biggest pieces of evidence that we have for a social lifestyle amongst Smilodon comes from the Libreia tar pits in California. These pits are referred to as predator traps. As for whenever one animal gets stuck, numerous predators would often get trapped alongside them,

after they try to get an easy meal, which leads to 90% of the LeBrea bones coming from predators themselves. And Smalodon was no exception, and is actually the second most common find in the pits, with over 160,000 fossils being attributed to it. This high yield has convinced many that Smilodon prowled in groups, since in modern cats, the more social kinds typically respond more to distress calls. Thus, the larger number of remains is assigned to some that Smilodon was highly sensitive to distress calls, which indicates gregarious hunting. Another, perhaps more interesting argument, is what has been dubbed by some to be pseudo-health care. Specifically, certain paleontologists have pointed out how multiple Smilodon's with extensive trauma or abnormalities, who should have

died, seem to have survived, indicating that they were taken care of. A popular example of this was an individual that had signs of hip dysplasia at a young age, and still managed to survive well into adulthood. Of course, though, there are those who think it was more of a loner, pointing out how skeletons found outside a predator traps are more isolated. Whatever the case, Smilodon was no doubt amongst the most dominant predators around, but it was a lot of the most dominant predators around. But it was by no means the only carnivore, for it lived with multiple other iconic predators, the most important of which, in its case, was the American lion and direwolves. As isotopic analysis showed that these predators had the most similar diet to that of the Smilodon, making them its

biggest competitors. Although, despite Dyerwolves having the numbers and American lions having the size, Smilodon seemed to do just fine against them. Perhaps thanks to its canines being on full display 24-7, which would have intimidated nearly any animal around. Regarding the American lion, the two most likely tried their best to avoid each other, but fights at times were a given considering how similar their diets were, and in such fights it was likely anyone's game. On the other hand, competition with the dire wolf seemed to be more in favor of the Smilodon, as Lebray remains hint that direwolves would often yield their own kills of smilodons that were then completely devoured, flesh and bone alike. Besides quote-unquote,

cats and dogs, there were large bears around too, namely the short-faced bears, whose members could get quite a bit heavier than even the largest recorded Smilodon, with a few reaching the size of literal dinosaurs, like Saratosaurus and average-sized allosaurus. However, these bear behemoths possessed more omnivorous diets, which helped to likely ease tensions between the two species. Also, these bears tended to be more solitary. Therefore, if the Smilodon wasn't alone, then a bear most likely would not choose to engage, And thus, avoiding a fight and leaving the carcass for the cats.

And this mention of carcasses actually brings up a pretty good question not yet addressed, which is, how the heck did Smilodon eat food? Well, due to their saber teeth, they couldn't eat from the front like most animals can. Instead, they were equipped with blade-like carnassials that would overlap into shearing motion, slicing and dicing through flesh like butter. These teeth were situated on either side of the mouth, allowing individuals to munch on pieces of meat with their heads turned. and thus bypassing the obstructiveness of their canines.

And interestingly enough, such a method is still seen in cats today, and other predators as well, which pretty much showcases, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Ultimately, its peculiar teeth led to Smilodon being both rather odd and highly successful, despite being the youngest of the saber-toothed cats. And between the three species, it achieved a vast distribution within the Western Hemisphere. In North America, Grascellus and Fatalus had a near-Universal. range, and were found as far north as Alberta, Canada, and ranged between both coasts. In South America, where Fatalus and Populotaur resided, they were equally widespread,

having established a domain that extended all the way south to Patagonia. And Smilodon wasn't just good at spreading far and wide, but also capitalizing on mixed biomes, with remains showing that it adapted to live in grasslands, plains, woodlands, closed forests, savannas, subtropical forests, and mammoth steps. With such an impressive distribution, it's no surprise that this apex predator lived alongside a plethora of other Pleistocene and Holocene icons that included short-faced bears, proboscidians, ground sloths, glyptodonts, toxidontids, camels, deer, horses, bison, terrobards, other large cats, multiple canids, alligators, snakes, crocs, caymans, and many, many more. It also lived with an animal we are very familiar with, ourselves.

It is thought that we may have encountered Smilodon as far back as 25,000 years ago, and because our diet can include similar items, the relationship between humans and Smilodon was likely tense. Unfortunately for our kind, our timing was rather poor, as by the time people arrived, only Populatur and Fatalus, the bigger species, were left standing. This made coexisting that much harder. And because Megantarian, the cat which Smilodon may have evolved from, was known to occasionally kill Homo erectus. It's been proposed that a few unlucky people were taken out by Smilodon

too from time to time. However, thanks to our far superior technology, humans certainly got the best of some Smilodon as well. For now, there is no direct evidence of such battles, but in 2021, researchers did locate a petroglyph that seemed to depict a group of humans watching a Smilodon from afar, which highly suggests that interactions did happen. Sadly, or perhaps not sadly, the coexistence between humans and Smilodon's was rather short-lived. As somewhere along the way from then to now, Smilodon's were lost to history, with the youngest Fatalus and popular remains, both being dated to about 10,000 years ago, around the same time that farming was first taking place in certain parts of the world. The extinction of the Sabretooth is a topic surrounded by a lot

of debate and mystery. Some believe that humans had a hand in its demise. out-competing it and starting fires that led to habitat loss. And while most agree that humans weren't good for Smilodon's population, there is disagreement in how much of an impact we had, with the more typical thought being that the loss of megafauna during the quaternary extinction event was the true culprit. As many large animals died off in North and South America, the Smilodon had less and less prey to choose from,

a curse of its own blessing, as it had evolved to be the perfect giant slayer. But unfortunately, there weren't many giants left. and soon enough, Smilodon died out, unable to adapt to this new world. Its ending marked the end of not only saber-toothed cats in the Western Hemisphere, but also worldwide, as it was the last member of its family who had been king throughout the globe for over 20 million years. Thanks for watching, and until next time. Own it all.

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