Giant Saber-Toothed Cat Roamed North America during Miocene

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Giant Saber-Toothed Cat Roamed North America during Miocene

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http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/ma ... 09619.html
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The newly-identified cat lived in what is now North America between 5.5 and 9 million years ago (Miocene epoch).

It belongs to Machairodus, a genus of large saber-toothed cat that lived in Africa, Eurasia and North America, and is an ancient relative of the best-known saber-toothed cat Smilodon.

Named Machairodus lahayishupup, the new species had a mass up to 410 kg, making it one of the largest felids in Earth’s history.

“We believe these were animals that were routinely taking down bison-sized animals. This was by far the largest cat alive at that time,” said Dr. Jonathan Calede, a researcher in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology at the Ohio State University at Marion.

Dr. Calede and his colleague, Dr. John Orcutt from the Department of Biology at Gonzaga University, examined several humeri (upper arm bones) of Machairodus lahayishupup from museums in Oregon, Idaho, California and Texas.

“One of the big stories of all of this is that we ended up uncovering specimen after specimen of this giant cat in museums in western North America,” Dr. Orcutt said.

“They were clearly big cats. We started with a few assumptions based on their age, in the 5.5 to 9 million-year-old range, and based on their size, because these things were huge.”

“What we didn’t have then, that we have now, is the test of whether the size and anatomy of those bones tells us anything — and it turns out that yes, they do.”

http://www.sci-news.com/paleontology/ma ... 09619.html
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