Smilodon

Smilodon is a genus of extinct felids. It is one of the best-known saber-toothed predators and prehistoric mammals. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely related to the tiger or other modern cats, belonging to the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae, with an estimated date of divergence from the ancestor of living cats around 20 million years ago. Smilodon was one of the last surviving machairodonts alongside Homotherium. Smilodon lived in the Americas during the Pleistocene to early Holocene epoch. The genus was named in 1842 based on fossils from Brazil; the generic name means 'scalpel' or 'two-edged knife' combined with 'tooth'. Three species are recognized today: S. gracilis, S. fatalis, and S. populator. The two latter species were probably descended from S. gracilis, which itself probably evolved from Megantereon. The hundreds of specimens obtained from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles constitute the largest collection of Smilodon fossils.

Smilodon

JJonahJackalope · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
saber-toothed catPBDB
Sits inside
SmilodontiniPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Felidae
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Length
175 cmWikidata
Mass
280 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 236 million years on record.

The record covers at least 237 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 241.464 Mya to 0 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 3 of 143 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 3 of 143 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 143 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 143 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 143 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 143 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 143 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 143 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 143 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 143 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 143 occurrencesPliocene — about 4 of 143 occurrencesPleistocene — about 131 of 143 occurrences246–238 Mya — about 2 occurrences238–230 Mya — about 2 occurrences230–222 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences222–213 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences213–205 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205–197 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences8.2–0 Mya — about 137 occurrences237 Mya11.7 ka246 Mya0 Mya

143 occurrences of Smilodon on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

143 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

26 formations

Palm Spring — 32.90°N, 117.10°WMiramar — 37.98°S, 57.59°WMiramar — 37.87°S, 57.51°WErfurt — 49.04°N, 9.77°EErfurt — 48.90°N, 9.20°ESopas — 30.43°S, 56.45°WSopas — 32.05°S, 56.12°WSopas — 30.40°S, 57.33°WBermont — 28.80°N, 82.20°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WTarija — 21.53°S, 64.73°WTarija — 21.50°S, 64.75°WNuapua — 20.75°S, 63.07°WNuapua — 20.87°S, 63.07°WLujan — 38.57°S, 58.70°WLujan — 34.60°S, 59.15°WMesa — 9.85°N, 63.33°WTacubaya — 21.80°N, 102.30°WChapala — 20.30°N, 103.20°WPauba — 33.90°N, 117.00°WAmerican Falls Lake Bed E — 42.80°N, 112.90°WPalos Verdes Sand — 34.00°N, 118.20°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°WChui — 31.11°S, 50.98°WVorohué — 38.03°S, 57.72°WShuler — 32.71°N, 96.71°WStuttgart — 48.80°N, 9.17°ESanta Vitória — 33.74°S, 53.37°WSalto Ander Egg — 32.28°S, 60.37°WDolores — 34.38°S, 57.88°WTucuman — 26.81°S, 65.30°WWestbury — 51.60°N, 2.63°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Smilodon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 100 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Smilodon and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Smilodon and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,494 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 125 sites for Smilodon, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

108 references

Each of the 143 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 96 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content4

Picture of Smilodon

Credit
JJonahJackalope
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D scan

Licence
CC0 — this site’s default, not the record’s
Commercial use
the licence allows it
Specimen
Smilodon fatalis (Leidy)

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Smilodon populator · MCC:MCC:868V

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itSmilodontini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lund 1841