One of my favorite videos of all time we learned a lot since this. the big guy that passed on from cancer. For the most part is spot on and a lot of this video now proven fact. lot of it's not but they didn't do too bad at all they got half right most of it. they did one hell of a job so I give them a lot of credit.
Larry Marin's right about how sabre-toothed cats killed their prey. Indepth studies of the gape of Smylodon and wear patterns on their joints, it's now known that they would grab their prey with their front paws, wrestle the prey to the ground and then use their long sabres to rip out the soft part of the throat. Even though they could open their mouths incredibly wide, the shear length of their sabres meant they would be incapable of giving anything more than a very shallow bite to anything wider than the throat.
Barbourofelis was a nimravid, not an ancestor of true cats. I wish they'd made that clear. But then again, perhaps that hadn't yet been determined at the time this show was made. I hope they also did an episode on the convergent evolution of sabre teeth in other animals such as the stem-mammal gorgonopsids and the sparassodont Thylacosmilus. Sadly, the clouded leopard is highly endangered and may not be around for much longer. Thus we may indeed be responsible for the extinction of the last sabre-toothed cat.
Old comment but worth explaining, oftentimes Paleontologist's will not explain the concepts of stem and crown groups because these are confusing to lay people. As someone working on a fossil "stem sharks" I will often just call them sharks for the audiences sake, since they get a little confused, particularly when we explain that "unchanged for 400 million years" concept is not actually true. I suspect the Paleworld producers thought Nimravids would be a tricky concept, a couple other episodes have refered to them as just Sabre tooth cats. But yes it was understood they were a different lineage at the time
The explanation of rotting, blowfly-ridden carcasses starting at 7:31 used to creep me out as a little kid. Even today whenever it pops back up in my mind again it somewhat makes me want to think twice before eating.
I hope before I die scientists are able to clone (bring to life) some of these awesome ancient creatures, some one needs to find a well preserved frozen one
Oh yes. We will get large saber-tooth cats again when the rhino and Mastodon are reintroduced. And the Ghost Dance brings back the native people's to dominance in North America. At the end I felt a bit like the narrator was channeling Art Bell
D She They also claim cats are “nature’s most efficient predators”, which is far from true. Several mid level and apex predators are more efficient, chief among them are the dogs. In fact, African Wild Dogs are, by far, the most efficient of the top predators with a hunting success rate above 90%. Later it is claimed the Saber toothed cats could “bring down an animal the size of an elephant” with one bite. This is clearly pure fiction. It’s sad when these “documentaries” are so fast and loose with the facts.
@@CharmsDad You're right. Compared to wild dogs, many of the big cats that are their leading competitors are actually rather pitiful hunters. For example, only 50% of a cheetah's hunts-and 25% of a lion's-end in a kill. 🦁 🐆
Davin Lianto Oh, I agree. In fact, it is almost certain that mammoths and mastodons didn’t have any predators, particularly adults. And claiming a cat the size of a house cat could kill an adult deer is just as absurd. I find it rather entertaining how almost all paleontologists have absolutely no clue when it comes to real world animal behavior.
15:25 Um....if they were living in the same environment as a large, saber-toothed predator that regularly hunted them and relied on them as its main source of food, I'm pretty sure they were all too aware that they DID have predators. Like WTF, man? What kind of logic is that?
He's trying to say that the large rhinos and elephants of the time would eventually become accustomed to not having to fend off predators as often after reaching maturity. Only for a barbourofelis to get the best of their complacency. This happens fairly often in nature. It's just that Professor Martin didn't happen to word it particularly well or relied too heavily on hyperbole. The point still stands.
13:22 that is a Jambiya! A double edged "Dagger" from the Arabic cultures historically from Spain to Yemen. It was primarily used in sickle-like stabbing cuts but drawing out cuts or slashing cuts on it outer edge. He was super lucky to get one at a flea market. Originally the handles were out of rhino horn. I've been wanting one for years with a "battle ready" one with a wooden handle.
depending on the species, smilodon Fatalis weighed around 160-280kg and smilodon populator weighed 220-400kg on average and 450-470kg for the largest specimen.
5 лет назад
yeah smilodon is considered to have been as big if not bigger than ever a siberean tiger, so I'm not surprised by the weight estimate you cited.
@@williamjordan5554 in an upward motion yes but when Smilodon closed its jaws the huge mussels in the jaw & neck area would pull its entire head downward which would of resulted in a chillingly powerful downward bite.
Elephants and rhinos exists centuries after sabertooth died out. Pictures were painted of cave lions. One species of clouded leopard is supposed to went extinct last year and other is supposed to follow its relative shortly. Jaguars vary in size across its range though I doubt any clouded leopard got the size of even the smallest heavily muscled jaguar.
That’s cool. But I’m pretty sure we got this planet until an apex extraterrestrial predator finds us. Ain’t no cat gonna come back and start taking us, the top predator out of the equation
Just so you know, the La Brea Tar Pits are NOT in downtown Los Angeles, The Tar Pits are located in Miracle Mile 6 miles west of downtown on Wilshire Bl. Right near my home at Park La Brea!
Although Barbaro Felix could have done it, Smiledon could NOT have brought down an elephant. They could take pretty much anything up to three to four times their size, but not something as massive as a mastodon. They simply didn't have strong enough teeth to get through a neck that size. Homotherium could have though. With their different dentation they could pierce the tough skin and it appears that they hunted together. They spread to every continent except Australia and the arctic.
Once again, the predator is labeled as evil. Hunting cats do not have a "rage to kill." They are carnivores. They eat meat. I think it is much kinder to kill your meal before you eat it. Just because humans arrange for someone else to kill their food for them doesn't make them any less killers than wild cats. canines, reptiles, etc. Knock off the melodramatic phraseology, please.
"who would paint a picture of the creature that haunts his dreams?" simple: the kind of people who watched this video and those featured in it. humans, especially men, are fascinated by displays of power and ferociousness. if anything, people who wouldn't want to paint such a creature would likely be the minority.
My bet is that it used the pin and sever technique, with the front arms being used to tackle and hold down prey before using the wide gape and sabers to slice through the carotid arteries and windpipe.
my opinion is such that cats typically kill prey by crushing the trachea... all easy for a short toothed cat, like a Lion, when prey items, like Zebra, have very short hair. I believe the sabre tooth was to facillitate penetration of very thick hair, see bison, lower teeth would grip hair on one side of throat, upper teeth push through it on the other side of throat... with leverage force applied around the neck, the trachea of a bison could be constricted. not something a cat with short teeth will ever do to a long haired animal, would just get mouthfuls of hair. Big cats always go for the throat as soon as they can because suffocation is the easiest way of killing.
Cats are the athletes of the animals. Seeing a snow leopard fall hundreds of feet down Rocky cliffs with a sheep and then grab it and kill it. Yes they are bad. Thanks
Nobody has been able to successfully figure out just how Smilodon could use those teeth to actually kill something. The narrowness combined with the length would pretty much guarantee that they would break under pretty minimal struggle from any prey species it would attack. The traditional neck and throat grab wouldn't be feasible, and the mouth could not open wide enough to go for a gut shot. Plus they are not really built for hunting with longer legs in front, downward sloping back and shorter rear legs, it wouldnt have been a runner, even if it were a ambush predator, it's not built like the cats that specialize in that sort of attack and they wouldn't have been agile enough. There gait would have been unlike any other cat known. I believe they were scavengers. The teeth of Smilodon would have been perfect for opening up a dead animal and wouldnt have to worry about the teeth breaking. Being so powerfully built in the front of the body they would have been quite formidable protecting its meal from other scavengers, giving Hyeneas and wolves a real run for their money if they tried to steal a carcass from a group of Smilodon.
Very interesting. The gene that controls large canine teeth in cats must be recessive then. Also, I don't think its out of the realm of possibility for the cats to attack both the throat and stomach, though the former is more likely.
persianking44 when this was new they seems not to understod yet thst all these are not true cats but other types av mammals that had an evolution in simmilar situations. Barboroufelus is not a cat even, it judt looks like that, and we have more of those over the cenozoic, false cats. smilodon a real cat and its relativs took over from the latest if these like nimravids not evolved from them.
i can imagine a gepard with a saber tooth. if you examine his hunting technique when it gets close enough, he grabs the prey with claws and brings it down to score the kill, and at that point a tooth like that will be awsome, becouse a bite almost anywhere on the body will be a killing blow
The focus on brain size is often over exaggerated and under explained. Larger brains tend to have more functions. While larger bodies need larger brains to compensate, that relationship isn’t exactly linear. Having a larger brain to body ratio has benefit as well as costs. Some times the costs outweigh the benefits. Sociability take a lot of brain space for instance. In a species that isn’t very social having a larger brain to accommodate sociability would be a waste. Humans have what I’ve heard referred to as a “luxury sized brain” in the animal kingdom. As well as a repetition mutation in our genome at the sequences for neurones which basically increases the number of connection per neurone. Making our brains not only bigger but denser. With fossils we don’t know the neuronal density of larger animals with small brains. That may also play a role.
I myself don't have any way to test this but I get the feeling that unlike a modern lion that has to hold its grip could a saber tooth potentially have a locking jaw like a modern pitbull when closed?
With such a large number of smilodon remains in the tar pits it gives weight to them being group hunters. Also the large carnassial teeth I saw on one of the more ancient skulls tend to be found on animals who have to compete during feeding with other members of their pack/family. In that scenario you have to glut down your food as fast as possible before all of your mates consume the rest. Which makes me think saber teeth evolve after the animal becomes a pack hunter. Also the argument over how they used the teeth seems too black and white. Having large teeth and strong shoulder, neck and back muscles allows them to deliver deadly bites just about anywhere, just bite their prey and pull, especially useful with multiple attackers latched onto the prey.
It only indicates they were attracted by the struggling or already dead herbivores, same as the bears and wolves. It’s easy to make assumptions but not very scientific. First thing we did at university was a course in critical thinking, should be taught to 7 yr olds.
In response to your statement about the heavy build, that’s likely because they were ambush hunters, not indicative of communal living - probably contradictory as that mass requires extra energy and those type of kills have never been observed in social mammals. Remember, this is a focus on the sabre canine, not any particular species so it’s impossible to infer any social behaviours documentary.
C.L Cox Don't know, Google it or look for newer YT videos on the subject. Probable could get to 600 lbs depending on the time period, food availability, region and subspecies.
Interesting, but dated of course. But, geez, a few less snarls would have been nice. From these documentaries, one would assume that the sabre toothed cats couldn't close their mouths.
That old painting of natives attacking a mammoth is pretty dated. Would you run up with a big rock to annoy a wounded elephant and enjoy getting swatted into a tarpit by it's trunk knocking you senseless? Instead of using a dart thrower from a hundred feet distant, to put a razor-sharp obsidian blade into it's neck or belly? This is a case of a public domain image having legs because it's free to use, even if it is ridiculous. There are still a few humans alive who know the old ways, and probably more who have taught themselves and learned from traditionals, and you can find people in the US today who, after showing how to make the gear, could put a 4ft.fletched dart into a cow carcass from a good distance.
It's implausible that humans made saber-toothed cats extinct, or the megafauna they preyed upon. We're talking about small populations of human hunters with stone-age weapons hunting only what they needed to survive, simply because hunting these giant animals was risky and dangerous. Something else had to have happened to make the mammoths, mastodons, wooly rhinos, and other giant herbivores go extinct in most of the world.
You're funny. Many of these animals had very slow reproductive rates. We know for a fact that humans often killed more than they could eat. Make a kill. Take what you want. Leave the rest to rot is well documented human behavior. We know that during the last ice age they sometimes placed limbs of Mammoth in frigid ponds where it would only slightly fitment during the winter and could be recovered if needed because some of these stashes have been found.
Dwight E Howell Wow, you are truly a brainwashed idiot. Hunter/gatherer societies lead a subsistence level lifestyle. Every hunt is a significant investment and they harvest all they can from each and every kill. Until the reintroduction of the horse the peoples of the American plains barely got by and were few in number. The North American native peoples who were the most successful were on the coasts and in what is now the Southwest US and Mexico and were primarily farmers. The reintroduction of the horse significantly shifted the “balance of power” and enabled those on the plains to both hunt and wage war much more effectively. Even then, their impact on mega fauna, such as the American Buffalo, was not significant and the number of apex predators they killed was even less so. In all likelihood the practices of those around when the mammoth, mastodon, giant sloth, American lion, American cheetah, dire wolf, cave bear, and other mega fauna and large apex predators were probable similar to those of native African tribes. These peoples don’t hunt elephants, rhinos, and other extremely large animals, but they will scavenge all they can get from one that is found dead. They only go after apex predators in “right of passage” ritual hunts or if there is a specific threat, and their take is extremely limited. Contrary to the myths, the weapons available to prehistoric hunters in the Americas were not capable of bringing down a mammoth or mastodon. Other, more reasonably sized (and much less dangerous), game was available in significant quantities. The whole “humans killed them off” myth has been propagated by the crowd who wants to blindly blame humans for all the worlds “evils” no matter what the factual evidence suggests.
There is a growing body of evidence that a catastrophic event, probably multiple impacts of large chunks of cometary debris, caused a sudden melting of large portions of the northern icecap, creating the Channelled Scablands and other geographical features, at the time of the megafauna extinctions. Note that human beings come under the category of megafauna and many populations of people also died out at that time.
The first thing he says "In Africa ...." and proceeds to show a Cheetah, a Lion, and a Tiger. Except EVERYONE KNOWS that Tigers don't live ANYWHERE in Africa. Big mistake.
Can you upload these ? 4. Boneheads 5. Armoured Dinos 6. Ape Man 7. Dwarf Dinos 8. Flesh On The Bones 9. Treasure Island 10. Horns And Herds 11. Valley Of Venom 12. Early Birds
It's very good, but flawed. "Dawn of the Cats" . The Sabre Cats, were not the first cats. I love the Sabre cats, especially Smilodon. But, this is all about the Sabre cats. And they were by far not the first. As with mamoths, and Elephants, you might actually classify them as modern. Yes they have been extinct centuries. But like with modern wolves, and Dire wolves(who existed side by side at one point in time), they are completely modern, as any lage cat, as concerns there evolution. Dawn of the cats denotes, the origin and divergence of their branch, from other mammals. By title, it needs deal with the origin of species true cats diverging from Mammals, and thence the first species of actual, early true cats. The Felines were diverged, and established long before the Sabre Cats. The Sabres are far from the first cats. There emergence, is not the dawn of felines. The Line was long established, before their emergence.
There are several problems. This promotes accept view points not science. Videos of lynx or Bobcats chasing hares or rabbits even with short tails have no problems making sharp turns.
Why has asphalt changed to be heavier than water? I have hauled asphalt and quickly learned to load asphalt on top of water could kill. Like all petroleum products the specific gravity of oil is lighter than water. Oil floats on water. Not water floating on water.
Asphalt is composed of two major components: The oil product, and the gravel. If you take the rock out, the tar in it would very likely float. That's part of why roads get slick when they're first rained on; the oil on the surface floats up to the top and makes an oil slick.
???? You can't just leave us hanging like this. What do you mean by stating that "cats and dogs came from the pleides"? Proof, and explanation please. Thanks.
No one considers it's competition, the Direwolf as the basis for it's extinction? Same territory, same food supply, canines hunt in large packs, felines hunt alone or in very small packs. Felines use speed and brute force, Canines use tactics of entrapment and relentless pursuit. As discussed here: www.thoughtco.com/dire-wolf-vs-saber-toothed-tiger-4165309
Once again we get the 'it was either climate change of human hunting or both' line when there is a third possibility currently gaining evidence all the time, which is multiple comet fragment strikes on the ice sheets, causing a huge catastrophe...
You, uh, you do realize that if there's evidence for multiple causes, it was very likely multiple causes, right? That rarely does nature have a single cause for a mass extinction?
@@stormisuedonym4599 Yes, there is some evidence for other factors - very little for the human hunting scenario though, which just does not cut it given the numbers of hunters and the large numbers and variety of beasts! However, the comet fragment strikes, for which the evidence just gets firmer and firmer (see Martin Sweatman's multi-video review of ALL the scientific papers for that: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3SNs68ic7CY.html ) must rate as the primary cause. We know, for instance, that some mammoths survived on islands (dwarfed) for many thousands of years further and no doubt other species were not quite finished off by the strikes. The Clovis culture probably was, though - it cust off at exactly that time.
Yeah, even in another episode one of the PALEONTOLOGISTS called it a tiger (the bearded guy with the cowboy hat). How does the paleontologist get it wrong?!
Tiger is just a name some people gave a cat that other people adopted. Eusmilus size depended on species some larger than leopard. Eusmilus was a species of "false" cat or cat-like animal.
Something that tends to annoy me is that these 'experts' always draw conclusions based on living animals and so many times they're wrong. They say, one false move and a saber tooth can snap off and yet insist that it is a bite that is used to kill. Probably not. It's not logical. A huge cat (or, yes, a nimravid) slams into an animal and without even opening it's jaws slashes a deep gash into skin and muscle. Then again and again. And then stands back as massive blood loss turns quickly into shock and then their prey dies. No gaping jaws, no struggling to grab a throat or a belly (funny, most modern felines avoid going for the belly knowing how easy it is to get a kick from their prey and what that can do them). Think of it like two humans fighting with sabers! Slashing and gashing and tearing tendons and slicing muscles. No finesse needed, big brains not required. There's a real lack of imagination with these academics I find.
You point out how easily broken their fangs are, and then suggest they use them in a much more violent and stressful way that would almost certainly result in snapped fangs? And the _scientists_ are the ones with no imagination? How profoundly arrogant you are.
