Sabertooth siblings shed light on Smilodon's growth

[Dusty Wren]

A fun paper popped up on iScience today and I thought it was worth sharing.

The gist is that the researchers found some Smilodon fatalis remains in Ecuador and identified them as a mother and her two nearly grown cubs. Since the cubs were estimated to be at least two years old and almost the size of adults, that suggests that Smilodon cubs grew quickly, like tigers do. But they were also still hanging around with Mom, and sticking with family for a long time is what lions do. So growing sabertooth cats weren't quite like lions or tigers; their growth strategy was unique.

The paper is open access, so you can get all the details there. It's got lots of good photos of the fossils. If you're really short on time, one of the researchers summarized the paper in a Twitter thread.

[TethysaurusUK]

The paper does state 2 hypotheses of the taphonomy. But the primary one they go with is definitely more solid. I get implications from how the
ontogeny and behaviour influence taphonomy in other sites.