I Love Ligers And Tigons!!!

WHY ARE THERE NO SABRE-TOOTHS TODAY?

The various sabre-tooth cats and cat-analogues were adapted to hunting the mega-fauna that inhabited various continents until the end of the last ice age. Changes in climate and habitat (and possibly other factors such as human hunters and major viral illnesses) led to the extinction of the mega-fauna. When prey species goes extinct, specialised predators such as sabre-tooth cats also become extinct. Those that could adapt to hunting smaller, more agile prey (e.g. hoofed grazing animals) went on to become modern cats. The population levels of elephants, our largest land mammals, are probably too small to sustain a population of sabre-toothed predators. There is no need for modern big cats to evolve into sabre-tooth forms; it would expend energy on growing the huge teeth but gain no competitive edge over other predators.

The modern Clouded Leopard is the closest we have to a sabre-tooth cat. It has the longest canines proportional to body size of any of the modern cats - the length of the fangs in approximately three times greater than the width of the fang at the socket. The backs of the canine teeth are very sharp, like those of the prehistoric sabre-toothed cats. There is a large gap between the canines and premolars, enabling them to take large bits out of their prey. Given a few million years (if humans don't wipe it out) in which to evolve and the right selective pressures, Genus Neofelis could give rise to the next generation of sabre-tooths.

There are cryptozoological reports of sabre-tooth cats surviving to the modern day in remote areas. The Tigre de Montage (Mountain Tiger) of northern Chad is described as lion-sized, striped reddish and white, tailless (or bobtailed) and having huge projecting fangs. From a selection of images, the one chosen by a Zagaoua hunter was Machairodus, an African sabre-tooth officially extinct for the last million years. The region is remote, mountainous and not well-known in zoological terms. Similar tales have come from the mountainous regions of Ecuador, Columbia, and Paraguay in South America, a region that has harboured marsupial sabre-tooths and eutherian sabre-tooth cats. In 1975, a big cat with 12 inch fangs was apparently killed in Paraguay; it was officially identified as a mutant Jaguar and unofficially identified as a Smilodon (the carcass seems to have been lost, preventing further study). Without firm evidence, e.g. a fresh or living specimen, sabre-tooth cats remain officially extinct.

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