I have always been confused as to why Homotherium serum or latidens died out. They were generalist predators (from juvenile mammoths to yak and horses), had robust enough hind limbs and while their forelimbs were more gracile than lions/tigers they were at least at par with lions in mass and were suited to both chasing and grappling with prey. They could hunt in forested and open plain environments and were adapted to wide temperature variations. If the cheetah could survive to this day why not them especially since they hunted in packs and had very high genetic diversity? Sabertooth is a fantastic book. Really informative.
I believe when times were tough larger and more numerous predators competed and killed them off. An example of this is the famous crater in Africa where hyena outnumber and dominate lions because of the lack of male takeovers. Also humans. No predator that hunted humans would’ve survived our vengeful, psychotic spirit. Wolves survived because they’ve learn to fear humans something big cats have yet to learn. Bears are built like tanks with thick skin and fat there’s little to nothing humans could do to kill them. Not the same with cats they lack such a shield of armor. Homotherium was simply outcompeted by our ancestors. Lions survived in Africa because they evolved alongside humanoids, tigers had forest to hide same with jaguars & cougars. Tigers also evolved alongside different species of hominids. Homotherium did as well but died out in Africa and absent in South Asia when hominids were evolving to hunt. We simply are equivalent to their niches.
33:42 I am almost certain that you are correct concerning whether or not homotherium was a social animal, there is evidence that they worked together to seperate a baby mammoth from its mother and or family as we have found many skeletons of baby mammoths in a single cave as it would and I believe other evidence of a social lifestyle concerning homotherium.
32:47 this is true we can not tell by looking at the skeletons which animals are social or solitary however one thing I found was interesting was the mathematical likelihood of animals in the la brea tar pits being social by the amount of animals we found, for example we have found very few Panthera atrox and many smilodon revealing a very social smilodon also with the damage on smilodon bones and those bones healing over time where a solitary animal sustaining such an injury would have certainly meant death we know smilidon was social, now the fact that we've found few lions doesn't mean that lions weren't social to a point it just means that they were solitary hunters unlike today, and I believe the male was the hunter in Panthera atrox because I believe it's the male that we find in the tar pits not the female. Not to expound too much I would also like to point out the evidence of homotherium hunting baby mammoths and the lack of evidence of machairodus being social or hunting together as a juxtaposition. Love the videos love the topics I love oxyeanids too and sprassodonts, thank you for the video
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