The Other Sabertooths: Scimitartooth Cats of the Western Hemisphere

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Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, 165, 470.

Book Reviewzoj_808 470

The Other Saber-Tooths: Scimitar-Tooth Cats of the The shorter Homotherium sabres probably had

Western Hemisphere by V.L. Naples, L.D. Martin and a similar cutting function but it was as the mouth Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/165/2/470/2627157 by guest on 01 October 2021 J.P. Babiarz, eds. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Uni- opened, after bite. Their posterior edges cut through versity Press, 2011. 236pp. Hardback. ISBN 13: 978- the trachea and carotid vessels in a draw-cut mecha- 0-8018-9664-4; ISBN-10: 0-8018-9664-9. £57. nism. Thus the scimitar-tooth was not just a manqué version of Smilodon’s dirk, but a tooth evolved to I think the bright dustcover and splendid illustrations produce a distinct killing mechanism. Hence the are partly intended to attract the non-specialist reader importance of the post-cranial skeleton. Smilodon’s but this is definitely an academic text book. The ‘other short back legs are for pounce from ambush and sabre-tooths’ referred to here are Homotherium,a standing upright to reach the neck of large prey. genus of cat with a remarkably widespread distribu- Homotherium had longer legs than Smilodon and tion (including Britain, where its remains were could have run down some prey, especially if it described by Owen) and Xenosmilus, both of which worked in groups like lions. co-existed with the better known Smilodon in North There is quite a lot you can tell from bones and America until they became extinct at the end of the it is all here. There is a chapter on pathology Pleistocene. ‘Scimitar-tooth’ is the name given by Björn and detailed chapters on osteology of Homotherium Kurtén and distinguishes Homotherium from the more ischyrus, a particularly long legged form that could familiar ‘dirk-toothed’ Smilodon although post-cranial possibly run down a horse over a short distance. skeletal differences are equally significant. An unfamiliar sabre-tooth cat species is Xenosmilus This book brings together recent work from various hodsonae and it is also described in detail here. It was authors that deal with Homotherium and indicates contemporary with Smilodon and Homotherium but how much about its life is still uncertain. Smilodon is only known from two specimens found in quarry has received so much attention because skeletal workings in Florida. It had a distinctive dentition material has been so abundant and in fact one of the apart from its scimitar teeth. The upper incisors form chapters deals more with an analysis of the function an interlocking arcade with those in the mandible of Smilodon teeth than it does with Homotherium. and there is no diastema gap between them and the This includes experimental palaeontology, in which a sabres (as there is in the other two genera). This mechanical rig fitted with interchangeable sabre- battery could provide a killing bite involving sabre teeth is used to test different bite patterns in cattle and incisors all together, the so-called ‘cookie-cutter’ or bison carcasses. This is fascinating and, I suspect, (or pastry cutter for British readers) but this awaits rather good fun. For Smilodon it has provided con- direct experimental verification. vincing evidence that the sabres, having punctured Finally the book rounds off with chapters on the prey, moved in an arc that is not precisely the axis systematics and the relationship between North of the tooth. Thus the sharp posterior edge of the American and Eurasian taxa. Altogether, an excellent tooth cuts and extends the wound across trachea compilation and a good example of how vertebrate and blood vessels as the bite closes, eventually cutting palaeontologists interpret the bones that they dig up. itself out. Trying to bite through the spinal column, like modern cats, would just shatter the sabres. BRIAN LIVINGSTONE