New Light on a Mysterious Cat
When I was a child fascinated by prehistoric creatures, it was still called a "saber-tooth tiger." A few decades later, it became clear that these creatures were not only unrelated to modern tigers (Panthera tigr), they were also not even closely related to the modern Felidae, instead belonging to their own family that was almost as closely related to the Viveridae (civets and mongoose) as to the Felidae.
They were mostly known from skeletons, or from preserved specimens in the La Brea Tar Pits. But now a juvenile saber-tooth cat has been found frozen in Siberian ice in an astonishing degree of preservation. Even the fur and whiskers are intact, and we can study the structure of the animal's paws, which are broader than modern cats' and lack one pad.
It's interesting that the scientists are referring to this animal as a "kitten" rather than a "cub," since the former is usually reserved for the young of small cats on the scale of a domestic cat, while the latter is usually used for the larger cats such as lions and tigers.. OTOH, juvenile mountain lions (Puma concolor) are often called kittens, perhaps to emphasize that the mountain lion (cougar, puma, catamount) is a purring cat more closely related to the domestic cat than the African lion -- and some paleontologists believe that the saber-tooth cats branched away before purring or roaring evolved in modern felid lineages.
They were mostly known from skeletons, or from preserved specimens in the La Brea Tar Pits. But now a juvenile saber-tooth cat has been found frozen in Siberian ice in an astonishing degree of preservation. Even the fur and whiskers are intact, and we can study the structure of the animal's paws, which are broader than modern cats' and lack one pad.
It's interesting that the scientists are referring to this animal as a "kitten" rather than a "cub," since the former is usually reserved for the young of small cats on the scale of a domestic cat, while the latter is usually used for the larger cats such as lions and tigers.. OTOH, juvenile mountain lions (Puma concolor) are often called kittens, perhaps to emphasize that the mountain lion (cougar, puma, catamount) is a purring cat more closely related to the domestic cat than the African lion -- and some paleontologists believe that the saber-tooth cats branched away before purring or roaring evolved in modern felid lineages.