Today, October 12, 2016, is National Fossil Day™, an effort by the National Park Service to promote public
awareness of fossils and to highlight fossils’ scientific value. This year’s
theme is “Pleistocene life and landscapes.” Imagine, if you will, a place
called Pleistocene Park covering all of North America. We think this would be
way better than that old Jurassic thingamabob, because there would be so many
different kinds of big cats. By the way, in case you are as clueless as we were
about what “Pleistocene” means, it’s basically the period from about 1.6
million years ago to 10,000 years ago. The following list of big cats of the North
American Pleistocene is organized by genus and species.
Genus Dinofelis
These cats, known as “false saber-tooths” because the form
of their teeth was something between a saber-tooth and that of modern species, were
between a leopard and lion in size. Their fossils have been unearthed in
Pleistocene deposits in Eurasia, Africa, and North America.
Genus Homotherium
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Human, meet Homotherium. Obviously, this was not a cat you'd want to keep in your cave. They'd be perfect for Pleistocene Park, though. By Dantheman9758 at English Wikipedia [CCBY 3.0], via WikimediaCommons. |
Genus Panthera
Panthera onca
This is your basic jaguar, and yes, they are known from the
Pleistocene, when they ranged well into North America (up to Washington State).
I say “your basic jaguar,” though the Pleistocene cats seem to have been larger
than the modern variety. They have been found mostly where lions were not common, in today’s Florida, Texas,
and Tennessee.
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Cast of Panthera atrox skull. A skull like this could have belonged to a lion in our Pleistocene Park. By Claire H. from New York City, USA [CC BY-SA 2.0 ], via WikimediaCommons. |
Panthera leo
Yes, there would be honest-to-goodness lions in our North
American Pleistocene Park. Some scientists consider the American lion (P. atrox) its own species.
Panthera tigris
Tigers were also around in the Pleistocene, and they might
have crossed the land bridge from Asia into North America, thus entering our park.
Genus Felis
Felis concolor
Some of you may recognize this as the scientific name of the
mountain lion, otherwise known as the puma or cougar. These cats are known only
in the Americas, and they appear in the fossil record from about 500,000 years
ago.
Genus Miracinonyx
These cats were similar to modern cheetahs and may have been
a primitive form of cheetah. The genus is known in North America from fossil
remains of two species, M. inexpectatus
and M. trumani. The older M. inexpectatus, from about 3.2 million
years ago, is out of the time range of our park, but M. trumani was from 10,000–20,000 years ago, so they’d fit in
nicely. Their bones were similar to those of modern cheetahs, but their claws
were more fully retractable (modern cheetahs have semi-retractable claws).
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In case you're wondering, here you can see the relative sizes of the three Smilodon species. That blue man should stop waving and start running! By Matthew Martyniuk, adapted from 2001 original by Walking with Beasts (Own work) [GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons. |
Genus Smilodon
And so we come to perhaps the most famous of the Pleistocene
cats, the saber-toothed cats of genus Smilodon. These cats are known from North and South America,
and the last of them became extinct about 10,000 years ago. In the famous La
Brea Tar Pits of California, at least 12,000 individuals have been found.
Three species are recognized:
- S. gracilis was the smallest and earliest (2.5 million to 500,000 years ago) of the three. They lived in what is today the eastern United States.
- S. populator was the largest (the size of a modern lion). They are known from eastern South America, and they had huge upper canines.
- S. fatalis, the species that would be appropriate for our park, fell between the other two in size. They are known mostly from Pleistocene deposits in North America, though they have also been found in South America. When you think “La Brea Tar Pits” (or "Pleistocene Park"), think “Smilodon fatalis”!
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And what would a story about Pleistocene cats be without a saber-toothed cat skull? This one is Smilodon fatalis.
By James St. John [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Want more prehistoric cats? See Meet the Cat of All Cats: He's 25 Million Years Old and How Long Did It Take for a Saber-Toothed Cat to Grow Its Saber Teeth?
Source
Alan Turner, with illustrations by Mauricio Antón,
The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives (New York: Columbia University Press,
1997).
If you are in to big prehistoric cats at all, I think you’ll
find this book an excellent reference. The paperback is reasonably priced, it’s readable, and it’s heavily
illustrated, including 16 color plates. Highly recommended!
The link below is an
Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT
and I could get some coin for our kibble account.
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