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avatar_suspsy

Smilodons may have punctured each other’s skulls

Started by suspsy, May 31, 2019, 03:10:28 PM

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suspsy

May 31, 2019, 03:10:28 PM
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fossils-reveal-saber-toothed-cats-may-have-pierced-rivals-skulls

Interesting given how it's long been assumed that the fangs were too fragile to puncture solid bone.
Untitled by suspsy3, on Flickr

CityRaptor

#1
May 31, 2019, 04:07:42 PM Last Edit: May 31, 2019, 04:08:04 PM by CityRaptor
Aww, how cute, it wants to be T.rex.

On a more serious note: Wasn't the extinction of Smilodon partially attributed to the "uselessness" of those teeth? Guess that point falls flat now.
Jurassic Park is frightning in the dark
All the dinosaurs are running wild
Someone let T. Rex out of his pen
I'm afraid those things'll harm me
'Cause they sure don't act like Barney
And they think that I'm their dinner, not their friend
Oh no

stargatedalek

#2
May 31, 2019, 04:29:20 PM
I don't see this as evidence the teeth were regularly puncturing bone. Animals will take stupid risks when it comes to rivalry with their own kind, and plenty use teeth or horns evolved for different purposes to fight each other even at great risk of self inflicted injury.

paintingdinos

#3
May 31, 2019, 07:58:15 PM
Quote from: CityRaptor on May 31, 2019, 04:07:42 PM
Aww, how cute, it wants to be T.rex.

On a more serious note: Wasn't the extinction of Smilodon partially attributed to the "uselessness" of those teeth? Guess that point falls flat now.

Tangential but I'm currently reading the Mauricio Antón book Sabertooth and it's interesting to realize just how many times saber teeth have evolved over the course of earth's history. Given how it's popped up so many times in multiple types of animals seems to imply that the sabers themselves weren't the primary reason these animal went extinct. Probably more to do with being a large hypercarnivore during a period when large numbers of megafauna were on the decline.

CityRaptor

#4
May 31, 2019, 08:10:55 PM
Well, the original Saberteeth for sure went out with a bang:
Jurassic Park is frightning in the dark
All the dinosaurs are running wild
Someone let T. Rex out of his pen
I'm afraid those things'll harm me
'Cause they sure don't act like Barney
And they think that I'm their dinner, not their friend
Oh no

laticauda

#5
June 01, 2019, 04:10:13 AM
 Smilodon fatalis had weak jaws but extremely strong neck muscles, which they used to sink their long teeth deep into flesh.  I do not think the jaw force would be routinely strong enough to break bone.

More on bite force check these out: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0066888
Comparative Biomechanical Modeling of Metatherian and Placental Saber-Tooths: A Different Kind of Bite for an Extreme Pouched Predator
Stephen Wroe , Uphar Chamoli, William C. H. Parr, Philip Clausen, Ryan Ridgely, Lawrence Witmer

Jaw Function in Smilodon fatalis: A Reevaluation of the Canine Shear-Bite and a Proposal for a New Forelimb-Powered Class 1 Lever Model
Jeffrey G. Brown *
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4182664/

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