The sabre-tooth group is extinct, but is closely related to modern cats.

Meaning of scientific name
Smilodon = "knife tooth"

Pronunciation of scientific name
SMY-loh-don

Statistics
1.2m at the shoulder.

Physical description
The South America species, Smilodon populator, was even larger than its North America cousin, Smilodon fatalis with long, strong front legs to hold down prey and get an accurate bite with the sabre teeth.

Distribution
Smilodon populator is known from several sites in Argentina and especially the Lagoa Santa caves of Brazil.

Habitat
They inhabited the woodlands and grasslands of North and South America.

Diet
They preyed on large grazing or browsing animals.

Behaviour
The huge numbers of specimens found in La Brea in California suggest that they may have lived in groups, especially as many of the skeletons show that the cats survived despite terrible injuries that would have stopped them from hunting. There has been much debate about how the teeth were used. They were too fragile to be allowed to contact bone, and it seems that they were used to increase the power of a killing bite to the neck used by many living cats. The sabres would have sliced through the major blood vessels in the neck and cut off the windpipe with one well-placed bite. The powerful front limbs and retractable claws of the cat would have been used to hold the victim still, and the large number of sensitive whiskers to help place the bite accurately.

Conservation status
Extinct.

History
They lived 1.5-0.1 million years ago. Smilodon is the best-known of the sabre-tooth cats. The sabre-tooth group is now extinct, but they are cousins to modern cats.

Best place to see
Eton College Natural History Museum; Hunterian Museum, Glasgow; Grant Museum of Zoology; Natural History Museum.