The Double-fanged Adolescence of Saber-toothed Cats
New evidence suggests saber-toothed cats held onto their baby teeth to stabilize their sabers.
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New evidence suggests saber-toothed cats held onto their baby teeth to stabilize their sabers.
Evidence suggests saber-toothed cats held onto their baby teeth to stabilize their sabers, researchers report.
The sabre-toothed cat Smilodon is iconic, with its pair of elongated canine fangs, but new research suggests this is only half the story.
The skulls showed the saber tooth socket was occupied by two teeth, with the adult tooth slotted into the baby tooth.
<p>How did North America's saber-toothed cats hunt without breaking their unwieldy saber-like canines, which are vulnerable to sideways bending stresses? A UC Berkeley paleontologist provides mechanical evidence that during adolescence, when young cats were learning to hunt, their baby teeth remained in place for up to 30 months to laterally buttress the emerging permanent sabers. By the time the baby teeth fell out, presumably the adult cat knew how to protect its sabers during attacks.</p>