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The Smilodon

Researchers discover the secrets of the Smilodon tiger, the predatory animal that lived in the Ice Age

Hollywood movies have long featured the Immemorial Snow Leopard, a muscle mass with a terrifying jaw that spews out slashing, crooked fangs. Today's scientists are revealing the secrets of the ice leopard through the traces of its claws and fangs.

Many of the bones of the Smilodon ferocious saber-toothed tiger, which lived in the Ice Age roaming between the Americas, are being preserved in the center of the continent in The La Brea Tar Pits are a set of tar pits in Los Angeles.

"If you think about that now, he (Smilodon Fatalis) may have left his claws on what is now the main road in Hollywood much before Marilyn Monroe did," says the author. said paleontologist Z. Jack Tsing of the National Museum of Natural History in New York. on the Chinese stage.

On Wednesday, scientists presented a unique vision of the main features of this fierce tiger, including the dagger-shaped upper canine.

Scientists used advanced X-ray imaging and analysis of oxygen isotopes in the enamel layer of the tusk to conclude that its tusks were growing at twice the rate of the growth of the tusks of the current African lion and that the Smilodon tiger was at least three years old before its tusks were fully developed. Viranek said the tiger became extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Dagger-like fangs are 18 centimeters long

Its long, curved fangs - up to 18 centimeters long - represented a weapon. Robert Viranek, a paleontologist at the State Museum of New York, said he believed the Smilodon tiger was using its fangs to bite its prey's neck and sever its main arteries and veins to kill it immediately.

Biologist Tseng said the Smilodon tiger was about the size of a current lion or tiger, but its body was more robust, its back was more solid, its limbs were stronger, and its tail was short and thick.

The study of the tiger (Smilodon Fatales), which is one of three species of this tiger, used remains buried in the La Brea Tar Pits area in Los Angeles, which is a treasure trove of Ice Age fossils buried in the midst of tar, including fossils of mammoths, mastodons, wolves, sloths, and the American bull. (Bison) The camel.

The tiger was attracted to the area (La Brea Tar Pits) to prey on large animals that had dived in this asphalt environment and then implanted like them.

• food and fishing

He fed on deer, buffalo, young mammoths, diggers, and horses, and he also ate carrion. We think that Swordfish hunt in groups like the current lions, killing their prey by some of its neck using its fangs and claws to catch it.

• enemies

The Swordfish had enemies: the dire wolf, the giant short-faced bear, the cave lion, the cave bear, and other swordfish.

Tsing said that Smilodon developed a set of deciduous teeth before the permanent teeth appeared, and his sword-shaped teeth appeared when he was between one and one and a half years old.