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| Xenosmilus hodsonae | |
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| Topic Started: Jan 8 2012, 05:01 PM (2,137 Views) | |
| Taipan | Jan 8 2012, 05:01 PM Post #1 |
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Xenosmilus hodsonae Scientific classification Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Mammalia Order: Carnivora Family: Felidae Subfamily: Machairodontinae Tribe: Machairodontini Genus: Xenosmilus Species : Xenosmilus hodsonae Xenosmilus is a genus of extinct Machairodontinae, or saber-toothed cat. Discovery Two fairly intact specimens were found by amateur fossil hunters, in 1983 (1981 by some sources) in the Haile limestone mines in Alachua County, Florida. In 1994 the fossils were examined, and it was decided that the cats were of an entirely new genus, which was placed under the tribe Homotheriini. Era They lived about 1 million years ago, but as there are only two specimens of the same age, when they appeared and when they became extinct is unclear. Currently, there is only one species known, Xenosmilus hodsonae. Physical Description Physically, the cats stood about as tall as a modern lion (around 2 m in length), with a highly muscular body, around 180-230 kg in mass. Interestingly, before their discovery, all known saber-toothed cats fell into two general categories. Dirk toothed cats had long upper canines and stout legs. Scimitar toothed cats had only mildly elongated canines, and long legs. Xenosmilus broke these groupings by possessing both stout muscular legs and body, and short broad upper canines.  Diet Found alongside the two skeletons were dozens of peccary bones. It seems likely, with their muscular builds, that X. hodsonae preyed upon the wild pigs. __________________________________________________________________________________ A More fearsome saber-toothed cat Fossils suggest creature’s bite was devastating By Sid Perkins Monday, October 20th, 2008 CLEVELAND — Analyses of fossils reveal that a third, newly recognized type of saber-toothed cat — one that killed by biting large chunks of flesh from its victim instead of biting its neck and slashing the major blood vessels there — roamed the Americas about a million years ago. All modern-day cats, from tabbies to tigers, have cone-shaped incisors and canine teeth at the front of their jaws, and most of these felines are relatively lithe. But the extinct saber-toothed cats were a different breed altogether. Previously, scientists split those cats into two morphotypes, or combinations of body type and tooth shape, says Virginia Naples, a vertebrate paleontologist at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb. One group, the dirk-toothed cats, had stout bodies, short legs, and long, narrow, finely serrated canine teeth in their upper jaws. Felines in the other group, the scimitar-toothed cats, were slimmer than the dirk-toothed cats, had longer legs and had canine teeth that also were serrated but relatively shorter and broader than those of dirk-toothed cats. At the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology on October 18, Naples and her colleagues proposed a new, third type of saber-toothed cat: A stoutly built feline whose full array of teeth — not just the canines — were serrated. Because analyses of fossils from one of these felines suggest that the teeth on its upper jaw meshed with those on its lower jaw to produce a clean, nearly continuous cut, the researchers suggest calling the new morphotype “cookie-cutter cats.”  The fossils that inspired the cookie-cutter moniker belong to Xenosmilus hodsonae, a creature that lived about 1 million years ago. Those remains were found in what is now northernmost South America and the southeastern United States, and the cat is presumed to have lived in areas in between as well. The creature, which was first described in 2000, is about the same size and shape as a modern-day giant panda, says Naples. Xenosmilus’ bones were larger than those of other saber-toothed cats, and analyses suggest that the cookie-cutter cats’ forelimbs had a much larger range of motion, enabling them to more effectively grab and hold prey. “This was the sumo wrestler of big cats,” Naples notes. Atop Xenosmilus’ robust, flat-footed frame sat a skull with a devastating set of teeth. As with other saber-toothed cats, the canine teeth were long, robust and serrated. Unlike its kin, however, Xenosmilus’ incisors, which span the front of the upper jaw, were large and evenly spaced, says Larry Martin, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and a coauthor of the new report. Also, because Xenosmilus’ incisors vary in length, the full force of the creature’s bite would have been concentrated on only two teeth at a time — an arrangement that would have made it easier to bite into any tough-hided prey, he notes. While other saber-toothed cats probably dispatched their prey by biting its neck and severing the major blood vessels there, cookie-cutter cats probably just hung on and bit out a fist-sized chunk of flesh, causing massive blood loss that would have sent victims into shock in about 10 seconds or so, says Martin. That technique, plus Xenosmilus’ stocky stature, hints that cookie-cutter cats ambushed their victims, rather than chasing prey long distances “This cat could easily hold and bring down whatever it grabbed,” says Christopher Shaw, a vertebrate paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. That, along with the creature’s ability to cleanly rip out large hunks of flesh, would have been an effective combination against any prey, he notes. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/37828/title/A_more_fearsome_saber-toothed_cat  |
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| Rodentsofunusualsize | Jan 8 2012, 08:22 PM Post #2 |
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Just some extra info I found, explaining where the fossils were found and a little bit more elaboration on the cat itself. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/cookie-cutter-cat-not-as-cute-the-name-sounds/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45124819/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/ancient-saber-toothed-cat-was-cookie-cutter-cat/#.Twlxim8jFM4 I do not own any of these pictures and all credit goes to the original owners. Edited by Rodentsofunusualsize, Jan 8 2012, 08:23 PM.
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| Taipan | Jan 10 2012, 08:17 PM Post #3 |
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| Megafelis Fatalis | Jan 13 2012, 04:11 AM Post #4 |
Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis PaleoArt Blog - CarnivoraForum 
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| Megafelis Fatalis | Jan 31 2012, 04:48 PM Post #5 |
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis
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Cookie-Cutter Cat Not as Cute as the Name Sounds By Brian Switek October 27, 2011 | 4:03 pm |  The prehistoric cookie-cutter cat was not as cute as the name suggests. That’s especially true when you consider the fossil felid’s scientific label — Xenosmilus. That roughly translates to “alien knife”, and the name certainly fits. Xenosmilus was not a sleek, gracile beast like modern cheetahs, leopards, or tigers. This was a heavily muscled sabertooth which may have looked like a cat adapted into the shape of a bear. Even compared to other long-fanged cats of prehistory, Xenosmilus was a weird one. The unique nature of Xenosmilus was not immediately clear when the cat was discovered. During the early 1980s a group of quarry workers toiling away in the Florida heat accidentally uncovered a cache of roughly one-million-year-old bones as they were destroying a patch of limestone. Peccary bones dominated the site, so much so that the pit became known as “hog heaven.” But there were sabercats in the mix, too. These fossils were quickly grabbed by the local commercial fossil collector Larry H. Martin — not to be confused with paleontologist Larry D. Martin, who would later name Xenosmilus — who subsequently split the two individuals up. While Martin donated one to the University of Florida, the other was kept in private hands. At the time, the two partial sabercat skeletons were thought to have belonged to a widespread form called Homotherium serum. This wasn’t very exciting. Earlier excavations of Friesenhahn Cave in Texas turned up signs that the site had been a Homotherium den — including the skeletons of juvenile sabercats — and the previous description of these remains and others reduced interest in the Florida bones. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that paleontologists realized that the sabercat skeletons represented an animal strikingly different from Homotherium. Up until the discovery of Xenosmilus, the saber-toothed cats of the past 23 million years or so have been categorized by paleontologists into one of two categories on the basis of their dental cutlery and body shape. The dirk-toothed cats — such as the famous Smilodon — had long, slender canine teeth and relatively stocky frames. These cats were not pursuit predators, but carnivores which ambushed their prey and quickly wrestled horses, bison, and little mammoths to the ground with powerful forelimbs. The other group — dubbed scimitar-toothed cats — are thought to have opted for a different strategy. Scimitar-tooths such as Homotherium had shorter, broader canine teeth and were generally more slender, long-legged predators. Like cheetahs of the African savanna today, these cats may have been experts at tripping up fleeing prey before delivering a killing bite to the throat or belly. Xenosmilus doesn’t fit into either category. In evolutionary terms, studies by paleontologist Kurt Spearing and others have shown that Xenosmilus was most closely related to scimitar-tooths like Homotherium, yet the cat was clearly a different kind of predator. That’s what led paleontologist Larry D. Martin and colleagues to title their short paper which first described Xenosmilus “Three Ways To Be A Saber-Toothed Cat.” With short, broad saber-fangs like those of the scimitar-tooths, but with a more robust skeletal frame which resembled that of the dirk-toothed cats, Xenosmilus has been cast a unique evolutionary mosaic which incorporated characteristics from both of the previously-defined types of sabercats. That’s almost all there was to say about Xenosmilus for over a decade. There was only the short initial description, in addition to a few mentions of possible Xenosmilus fragments found outside of Florida, but now Larry D. Martin, John Babiarz, and Virginia Naples have followed up with a lengthy, detailed study of the two partial skeletons in the book The Other Saber-Tooths: Scimitar-Tooth Cats of the Western Hemisphere. The bulk of the new paper is pretty standard stuff — dry descriptions of vertebrae, limb bones, and the like — but the fact that Martin, Babiarz, and Naples are now calling Xenosmilus the “cookie-cutter cat” jumped out at me like a Smilodon leaping out from the tall grass. How did such a formidable predator end up with such a cutesy same?  An illustration of the reconstructed skull of Xenosmilus (BIOPSI 101; left) compared to the skull of Homotherium serum (right). The lighter, undetailed portions of the Xenosmilus skull are the parts which were missing. From Martin et al., 2000. An illustration of the reconstructed skull of Xenosmilus (BIOPSI 101; left) compared to the skull of Homotherium serum (right). The lighter, undetailed portions of the Xenosmilus skull are the parts which were missing. From Martin et al., 2000. In the upper jaws of sabercats like Smilodon, there is a significant gap between the canines and the battery of smaller, closely spaced incisor teeth. The way this arrangement actually functioned has often been debated, but it appears that the saber-fangs slashed through flesh in an arc while the forward-jutting incisor battery was useful in scraping flesh from bone. (Incidentally, the unique battery of incisor-like teeth in Tyrannosaurus rex may have allowed the famous dinosaur get the most from carcasses in a similar fashion.) In Xenosmilus, however, there doesn’t appear to be any large gap between the large upper canines and the upper incisors. The teeth appear to be part of a single unit rather than different tools used for different purposes. What the complete incisor battery of Xenosmilus would have looked like requires a bit of reconstruction. In the better of the two known skulls — BIOPSI 101 — almost the entire incisor battery is missing save for one large incisor tooth bordering that left canine and the second incisor on the right side. Nevertheless, the left and right sides of the upper jaw would have been mirror images — what is present on the right side can be flipped to fill in the missing parts on the left, and vice versa. When this is done, only a small section at the very front of the upper jaw is missing. Instead of having a battery of smaller, closely packed incisors, Xenosmilus had more widely spaced, roughly oval, and serrated incisors which — with the formidable canines — created an arc of sharp teeth. Rather than trying to trip or tackle prey and then deliver deadly slashing bites, Martin and colleagues hypothesize that Xenosmilus had a different killing method. “As the jaws closed,” Martin and co-authors wrote in their new description, “a large bolus of meat was extracted.” This cat was not a quick and elegant killer. If these paleontologists are correct, then Xenosmilus tore away large chunks of flesh from the flanks or abdomens of fleeing prey until the animal died of shock and blood loss. The mouth of this cat may have acted as one of the deadliest cookie-cutters of all time. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/10/cookie-cutter-cat-not-as-cute-the-name-sounds/ Edited by Megafelis Fatalis, Jan 31 2012, 04:48 PM.
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis PaleoArt Blog - CarnivoraForum
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| ShadowPredator | Feb 6 2012, 01:24 PM Post #6 |
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That pic looks weird; Xsmilus looks to ungaingaly |
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| Megafelis Fatalis | Mar 6 2012, 03:59 AM Post #7 |
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis
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Xenosmilus Name: Xenosmilus (Foreign knife). Phonetic: Zee-no-smi-lus. Named By: Martin, Babiarz, Naples & Hearst 2000. Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Carnivora, Felidae, Machairodontinae, Machairodontini. Species: X. hodsonae (type). Diet: Carnivore. Size: 1.7 to 1.8 meters long. Known locations: USA, Florida, Alachua County. Time period: Calabrian of the Pleistocene. Fossil representation: Remains of two almost complete individuals. Although not as famous as Smilodon, Xenosmilus was nonetheless an exceptionally powerful big cat that is estimated to have weighed between 230-400 kg. This estimate puts Xenosmilus in within the same weight class as the largest species of Smilodon, and even though it was smaller, Xenosmilus would have been proportionately stronger for its size. Xenosmilus had been placed within the Machairodontinae group of sabre-toothed cats, mainly because of the large forward canines. However the canines were not as long as they were in other species, although the teeth in general do seem to be more robust possibly indicating that prey was still alive and struggling when they were brought into use. However the immensely powerful build of Xenosmilus meant that it was capable of wrestling almost any prey to the ground with ease, suggesting that teeth breakage would not have to be risked. Because Xenosmilus has a powerful short legged build associated with the dirk toothed cats combined with broad upper canines as seen in the scimitar tooth cats, its exact classification has been a subject of some confusion. It could be that Xenosmilus displays a link between the two cat groups, or alternatively the features of Xenosmilus are simply a freak case of convergent evolution. Xenosmilus is estimated to have lived one million years ago during the Calabrian phase of the Pleistocene. However because only the two specimens from the same locale are known, the full temporal range of Xenosmilus in the fossil record cannot be established. However this placement does reveal that potential competition for Xenosmilus could have come from the earlier species of Smilodon, Dire wolves, and possibly the Dire wolf ancestor, Armbruster's Wolf. One of the prey animals chosen by Xenosmilus are peccaries, often referred to as New World Pigs. This is confirmed by the presence of numerous peccary bones found in association with the Xenosmilus remains, and during the Pleistocene peccaries would have provided an abundant food source. Prehistoric Wildlife Edited by Megafelis Fatalis, Mar 6 2012, 04:00 AM.
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis PaleoArt Blog - CarnivoraForum
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| Cat | Mar 17 2012, 12:57 AM Post #8 |
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According to this link Xenosmilus had a plantigrade stance: http://qilong.deviantart.com/art/Xenosmilus-the-Panda-Cat-15581119 I'm looking for informations on this extraordinary cat, and it's the first time I read about it being plantigrade (or maybe semi-plantigrade?). Or has this information already been posted somewhere in this forum and I missed it? |
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TheWho we know for a fact that dangerous situations bring out the best in our physical and mental capabilities. this trait is literally encoded in our DNA.. we are the creme da la creme of what humans have to offer... guys every bit as impressive as Bronson abound in your local college campus.. | |
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| Neofelis | Mar 17 2012, 05:31 AM Post #9 |
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Did this Animal live to see the 1st Paleo Indians in America. Was it's enviroment similar to the La Brea pits? |
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| Megafelis Fatalis | Jun 16 2012, 09:21 PM Post #10 |
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis
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Skull length = ~ 33cm long (LINK) From this, I think Xenosmilus was around 110-117cm tall at the shoulder. 
Edited by Megafelis Fatalis, Jun 16 2012, 09:26 PM.
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Prehistoric Cat - Megafelis Fatalis PaleoArt Blog - CarnivoraForum
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| keyser.soze | Jul 7 2012, 09:54 PM Post #11 |
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I don't know why people are trying to paint this cat as if it were in the same league as smilodons. Its average weight is probably 230 kg, slightly higher than modern tigers and lions and equal to S. fatalis. It was muscular only compared to the homotheriums and intermediate between homotheriums and smilodons. Here is the Xenosmilus compared to Smilodon populator, it can be seen that the Smilodon has much thicker bones (humerus especially). But the Xenosmilus' shoulder blade is comparable to S populator. Edited by Taipan, Jul 7 2012, 10:20 PM.
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| Superpredator | Aug 21 2012, 06:30 PM Post #12 |
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~Lionclaws |
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