Sabertooth Tiger

Historical Background
The sabertooth tiger (also spelled saber-tooth tiger, saber-toothed tiger) is the common name of genus Smilodon, a predatory feline which lived in the New World between 3 million years ago and 10,000 years ago. They were most well-known for their long, curved canine teeth (7”/17cm long) which were used to tear open the throat to rapidly kill the prey. Despite their ferocious image, those teeth were actually very delicate and a struggling prey could easily cause those teeth to break. They hunted in packs in grasslands during the Ice Age and fed on bison, deer, elk, horses, sloths, and mammoths. They were ambush hunters. The saber-toothed tiger was first described in 1841 and went extinct about 10,000 years ago. The cause was being hunted to extinction by humans, the changing climate (the Ice Age was ending at the time it went extinct along with several other giant land mammals), or a combination of factors.