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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2019 2:12:07 GMT -5
This is great OldBlueOne! Would have love to see these cats battle it out! Now regarding the source, the smilodon's long canines are able to deliver skull bites. Still, I think it is much easier to deliver that skull bite on fleeing prey and opponents that have been defeated compared to an animal that is fighting back and trashing around.
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Post by smedz on May 27, 2019 16:13:35 GMT -5
Homotherium and Bear Relations Now for the big one, the Scimitar cats relationships with the different bear species. At the time they existed, Homotherium coexisted with many bear species. They shared the North American continent with the Brown Bear, American Black Bear, and the Giant Short-Faced Bear. In the northern tundra regions, they may have lived with Polar Bears, and in Europe, if they survived late enough, they would have lived with the Brown Bear and Cave Bear (great example of how uncreative we are at naming things). We must remember, these cats were social, so their relationships would not have been the same as the relations between bears, tigers, and leopards.
American Black Bear
My understanding is that black bears in the ice age were bigger than their modern cousins, and one on one, one could have easily have chased off a Homotherium. However, black bears evolved in the forests while scimitars lived out on the plains, so perhaps their interactions were rare, as black bears likely avoided the open plains.
Grizzly Bear
Unlike the black bear, grizzlies evolved in more open areas, where they could not make an escape up a tree, so they had to become more aggressive, and brown bears are impressive animals, and one, especially a large male, would have been able to displace, and even kill a Homotherium over a carcass, but not a group. With both on the plains, I believe their interactions would have been more common than with black bears. Since scimitars were social cats in large groups, it's reasonable to say that mother grizzlies would have avoided areas where these cats were common, as they would have no chance of successfully defending their cubs against a group of scimitars. In a large group, perhaps maybe they would choose a big boar grizzly as potential prey, and since grizzlies also like to hunt animals like bison, maybe as a competitor as well.
Polar Bear
I believe these would be similar to the possible relations with grizzlies, only not really as competitors.
Short-Faced Bear
Now for the big boy, a short-faced bear was a formidable opponent, and no Homotherium, or even a small group in it's or their right minds would challenge this bear, for one swipe could end a life of a scimitar, so if any bear didn't avoid areas with scimitars, this would be the one. At least the males. If a big group saw a female arctodus with cubs, this would have caught their interest, as this would be a chance to eliminate future scavengers, and using their teamwork, they could have distracted the mother while the others attacked the cubs.
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Post by tom on May 27, 2019 19:11:41 GMT -5
Smedz could you give a general description of Homotherium especially size and weight? It would appear that he had a shape/angle to him kind of similar to a Hyena. So if this is true he likely would have had great endurance and top speed likely was not his strong suit.
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Post by smedz on May 27, 2019 19:25:47 GMT -5
Smedz could you give a general description of Homotherium especially size and weight? It would appear that he had a shape/angle to him kind of similar to a Hyena. So if this is true he likely would have had great endurance and top speed likely was not his strong suit. Sure thing tom, I can get to work on that soon.
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Post by Deleted on May 27, 2019 19:58:39 GMT -5
Personally I believe that a big male american black bear could beat a American scimitar one on one by would avoid a few of them by climbing. A grizzly which can't climb has to use aggression to keep itself alive. While female grizzly bears with cubs might avoid American scimitars/ homotherium, they will fight to death to defend cubs if needed to. A huge Kodiak and polar bear is capable of displacing even small groups of America scmitars too.
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Post by smedz on May 29, 2019 20:21:53 GMT -5
Homotherium in Indonesia I will get to the general description soon, I contacted Anton on the estimated weight of Homotherium, so I must wait for that to come around, if not, I'll look elsewhere. In the meantime, I decided to talk about Homotherium ultimum, or as i like to call it, the Javan Scimitar Cat. This animal seems to have been different from it's northern and African relatives. I asked tigerluver on wildfact by pm on this animal regarding if it lived in groups or not. He told me that if H.Ultimum was in groups, they would have way too much niche overlap with the Ngandong Tiger, and would make more sense for them to be solitary, and hunting smaller game. Due to this, I doubt adult bears would be consumed commonly, as a bear isn't usually a tiger's first choice of prey, and a scimitar would be more at risk to having it's canines broken in a brawl with a bear. Speaking of tigers, these homotheres coexisted with the Ngandong Tiger, which according to some estimates, could be up to 400 kg. With such a weight advantage, being more powerful, and having a more powerful bite, this animal would have most certainly have been able to displace a scimitar from a carcass. Another reason for H. ultimum to be loner is the habitat, in forests, hiding kills is much easier, and cover is not an issue, so being in a group wouldn't be necessary for H. ultimum.
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Post by smedz on May 30, 2019 15:56:09 GMT -5
Homotherium General Description Note: I still await Anton's response on weight, but for now, I can give minimum and maximum weight thanks to Aaron Woodruff's size comparison.
Height: 3-3.6 ft at the shoulder
Head to Body Length: 5.6-6.7 ft
Tail length: 0.6-1 ft
Weight: 145-200 kg (319-440 lbs)
Color: Nobody really knows, but being cats of the plains, it's likely they had plain coats, maybe with ringed tails, or maybe some facial patterns, or perhaps they had spots. But they most certainly didn't have stripes.
Appearence and other physical attributes: Short tail, plain or spotted coat, legs longer than the front legs making the back slightly slope down towards the hindquaters. Their forelimbs had narrow wrists, huge dewclaws, the rest of their claws were less retractable, so they were naturally smaller than pantherines. Their canines probably showed a bit. They were much more lightly built than the lion-like cats and Smilodon. They had a deep thoracic cavity that had a huge heart and chest, they also had large nasal cavities for bringing in more oxygen.
Teeth: The teeth of Homotherium are interesting, the 6 inch canines were able to pierce the tough hides of prey and severe many blood vessels. They had large incisors that were great at both dismembering and gripping prey, their teeth were lined with serrations on the front and back edges, they also had very well developed carnassial teeth that allowed them to take off big chunks of meat from a carcass, allowing them to bring some food back to a den.
Diet: Carnovore (duh), the normal prey would have been depended on location. In North America and Eurasia, horse, bison, camel, caribou, wild sheep, would all be normal prey items. In Africa, equids, antelopes, and bovids would be prey. In Indonesia, I would speculate deer and wild pig being the main food source. They fed on young mammoths, mastodons, and probably young deinotherium calves, but these would have been rare occassions.
Distribution: They lived on many continents. These would be Africa (of course), Asia, Europe, North America, even into South America.
Species: With a big range comes many species. They included............
Homotherium Serum
Homotherium latidens
Homotherium ultimum
Homotherium venezuelensis
Homotherium crenatidens
Homotherium davitasvilii
Time: Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2019 9:29:29 GMT -5
Credited to Warsaw:
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2019 9:33:48 GMT -5
Credited to Warsaw:
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Post by Deleted on May 31, 2019 9:35:13 GMT -5
Regarding the account above, I am not sure which website or book Warsaw got it from but it seems believable which is why the both the brown bear and polar bear have stronger forearms than a smilodon populator, american lion, and cave lion.
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Post by tom on Jun 5, 2019 17:51:16 GMT -5
I'm wondering would Smilodon Populator and Arctodus pristinus have inhabited the same region and if they did would a small group of Smilodon be able to tackle the huge Arctodus?
Arctodus was huge and IMO would have been able to displace a group of Saber toothed Cats from a kill.
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Post by smedz on Jun 5, 2019 19:06:29 GMT -5
I'm wondering would Smilodon Populator and Arctodus pristinus have inhabited the same region and if they did would a small group of Smilodon be able to tackle the huge Arctodus?
Arctodus was huge and IMO would have been able to displace a group of Saber toothed Cats from a kill.
How heavy was Arctodus pristinus?
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 6, 2019 6:08:14 GMT -5
I'm wondering would Smilodon Populator and Arctodus pristinus have inhabited the same region and if they did would a small group of Smilodon be able to tackle the huge Arctodus?
Arctodus was huge and IMO would have been able to displace a group of Saber toothed Cats from a kill.
How heavy was Arctodus pristinus?
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Post by tom on Jun 7, 2019 17:43:34 GMT -5
I thought there was a separate species of Giant Short-faced Bear that had inhabited the region we know call South America that was much more of a true carnivore than the one that inhabited North America.
Arctotherium angustidens?
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 7, 2019 18:16:05 GMT -5
I thought there was a separate species of Giant Short-faced Bear that had inhabited the region we know call South America that was much more carboniferous than the one that inhabited North America. Arctotherium angustidens? 1) Arctotherium angustidens 2) Arctodus simus 3) Agriotherium africanum Looks like there are different short faced bear subspecies.
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Post by King Kodiak on Jun 8, 2019 0:30:55 GMT -5
How heavy was Arctodus pristinus? I think this picture is wrong, pretty sure. (Different sites do that sometimes with prehistoric animals). This bear in the pic should be Arctodus simus. According to some fossils found, Arctodus pristinus was much smaller, males overlap in size with Arctodus simus females. All we know is that its size was similar to Tremarctos floridanus, 150 to 300 Kg, (330 to 660 lbs), Arctodus Simus females should be close to that upper range. that is all we have on Arctodus pristinus weight.
All the info here: domainofthebears.proboards.com/thread/221/arctodus-pristinus
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Post by King Kodiak on Jun 8, 2019 1:11:22 GMT -5
Regarding the account above, I am not sure which website or book Warsaw got it from but it seems believable which is why the both the brown bear and polar bear have stronger forearms than a smilodon populator, american lion, and cave lion. Great. Warsaw is very reliable anyways.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 10, 2019 23:38:33 GMT -5
Even the polar bear looks like it has more powerful forearms than a smilodon populator. The smilodon rivals the american lion for the title of the most powerful limbs among big cats.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 11, 2019 0:27:42 GMT -5
Another interesting picture.
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Post by OldGreenGrolar on Jun 17, 2019 3:09:09 GMT -5
Morphology
The different groups of saber-toothed cats evolved their saber-toothed characteristics entirely independently. They are most known for having maxillary canines which extended down from the mouth even when the mouth was closed. Saber-toothed cats were generally more robust than today's cats and were quite bear-like in build. They were believed to be excellent hunters and hunted animals such as sloths, mammoths, and other large prey. Evidence from the numbers found at La Brea Tar Pits suggests that Smilodon, like modern lions, was a social carnivore. The first saber-tooths to appear were non-mammalian synapsids, such as the gorgonopsids; they were one of the first groups of animals within synapsida to experience the specialization of sabre teeth, and many had long canines. Some had two pairs of upper canines with two jutting down from each side, but most had one pair of upper extreme canines. Because of their primitiveness, they are extremely easy to tell from machairodonts. Several defining characteristics are a lack of a coronoid process, many sharp "premolars" more akin to pegs than scissors, and very long skulls. The second appearance is in Deltatheroida, a lineage of Cretaceous metatherians. At least one genus, Lotheridium, possessed long canines, and given both the predatory habits of the clade as well as the generally incomplete material, this may have been a more widespread adaptation. The third appearance of long canines is Thylacosmilus, which is the most distinctive of the saber-tooth mammals and is also easy to tell apart. It differs from machairodonts in possessing a very prominent flange and a tooth that is triangular in cross section. The root of the canines is more prominent than in machairodonts and a true sagittal crest is absent. The fourth instance of saber-teeth is from the clade Oxyaenidae. The small and slender Machaeroides bore canines that were thinner than in the average machairodont. Its muzzle was longer and narrower. The fifth saber-tooth appearance is the ancient family of carnivores, the nimravids. Both groups have short skulls with tall sagittal crests, and their general skull shape is very similar. Some have distinctive flanges, and some have none at all, so this confuses the matter further. Machairodonts were almost always bigger, though, and their canines were longer and more stout for the most part, but exceptions do appear. The sixth appearance is the barbourofelids. These carnivores are very closely related to actual cats. The best-known barbourofelid is Barbourofelis, which differs from most machairodonts by having a much heavier and more stout mandible, smaller orbits, massive and almost knobby flanges, and canines that are farther back. The average machairodont had well-developed incisors, but barbourofelids were more extreme. The seventh and last of the saber-tooth group to evolve were the machairodonts themselves. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saber-toothed_cat
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