Mammoths, Pharoahs and 3000BC - any ideas Shark?

[mmadsen]

Oh, mmadsen, that article you found was absolutely horrible! Barely a factual crumb in the entire thing.

But I found it on the net! It must be true!

There is no such thing as a Smilodon californicus the famous smilodon from La Brea is Smilodon fatalis. And what's that about smilodons being nimravids? That's absolutely untrue.

After doing some real research, I believe the nimravids simply included another saber-toothed species. It wasn't the saber-toothed "tiger" though.

And the idea of sber-tooths "stabbing" their victims is ridiculous. although prevalent amongst folks who don't know any better. The canines are actually fairly thin and gracile. A cat who tried to stab it's prey would likely have broken them the first time he tried to do so.

From a layman's point of view, they don't seem gracile or fragile at all. Aren't they an inch in diameter near the base? I wouldn't expect those canines to break on me...

Again, I can only refer you to Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives.

I found a web site that references that text: http://www.bluelion.org/smilodon.htm

 

[Master of Monkeys]

I played an Ice Age type game back in 2nd edition (so the stats are screwed) with mouse deer, giant armidillos, sloths as big as mammoths, all that stuff.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the last remaining mammoths back in 3000 ad were miniatures. I don't know the exact height but I am pretty sure it was much shorter than normal, older mammoths.

 

[MythandLore]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I thought the last remaining mammoths back in 3000 ad were miniatures. I don't know the exact height but I am pretty sure it was much shorter than normal, older mammoths.

Your not wrong, they were smaller.

From a layman's point of view, they don't seem gracile or fragile at all. Aren't they an inch in diameter near the base? I wouldn't expect those canines to break on me...

Their teeth?
Their teeth were really big, really really big.
But they are a little thin one direction and can be over an inch in diameter in another.
No one really knows how delicate or rugged the teeth really were, there are good arguments on both sides, that's another part of the reason why know one really knows what they ate or how they hunted.
I'm not sure how many of you have seen their teeth close up before so I'll explain a little, they are called "saber teeth" because they are like blades, thin in one direction but wide the other, also the teeth don't just have a sharp point like others do but they have a sharp cutting edge on them unlike other animals teeth, this is what made them so diffrent, other ancient cats like the "false saber-tooth" had the large teeth so the looked like the "saber tooth cat" but they did not infact have the "saber teeth".
If I remeber right the only animal alive today that has "saber teeth" (knife shaped sharped edged teeth) is a lizard of some kind, but I don't remeber which one, it might be the kamodo dragon or a type of iguana, sorry I just can't remeber what lizard.

 

[Master of Monkeys]

I found it, the mammoths were about 3 feet tall. "Pig height".

 

[Ace]

Have you seen Walking with Prehistoric Beasts? The movie has a section on the sabertoothed cats. It was explained that they were used after the prey was pinned to the ground. Then the sabers were used to bite into the neck for a quick kill.

Man I loved that special! Especially the Andrewsarchus

To quote the Discovery chanel

"A rhino-sized, wolf-like carnivore, Andrewsarchus is actually a relative of our familiar hoofed animals and a distant relative of the early whale, Basilosaurus. Its fossils are usually found around water, and as single specimens, so it seems that these animals might have been solitary scavengers along riverbanks and tide lines."

PRONUNCIATION: AND-ROOZ-ARK-US
LIVED: 60 – 32 million years ago
SIZE: 6 feet tall and 16 feet long, with a skull around 33 inches long
FACT: Weighed more than a car, and stretched the length of two
MEANING: Andrews' beast (after paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews, the role model for Indiana Jones)
CLOSEST LIVING RELATIVE: Whales and hoofed animals
RANGE: Eastern Asia

According to the show (IIRC) it was related to sheep!

Hellsheep hooda' thought?

Personally I think the critter would have made short work of most adventuring parties, Imagine a carnivorous mammal that weighs a ton

And its real to boot

 

[Desdichado]

mmadsen:
But I found it on the net! It must be true!

LOL! Sure, right...

After doing some real research, I believe the nimravids simply included another saber-toothed species. It wasn't the saber-toothed "tiger" though.

Yes, Dinofelis is the large "false saber-tooth" that was more or less replaced in the North American fauna. The nimravids are an entire family of carnivores that were so superficially cat-like that they looked more cat-like than some true cats. However, their actual relationship is unclear: some put them as a sister group to aeluroids, a sister group to viverrids, or even a sister group to felids. Others have them as some kind of basal carnivore family. The nimravids are really a fascinating group, and I wish there were some still around we could look at.

From a layman's point of view, they don't seem gracile or fragile at all. Aren't they an inch in diameter near the base? I wouldn't expect those canines to break on me...

They're thin and blade-like, not thick and spear-like. They could break if used in a violent stabbing motion. Most experts think the saber-tooths had such massive forelimbs to hold their prey still while they delivered whatever kind of killing bite they actually used.

I found a web site that references that text: http://www.bluelion.org/smilodon.htm

It's a great book. Like I said, my public library has it: I'd heartily recommend it. Written so laymen can really understand, but does have a lot of technical detail.