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Eurwentala β Thylacosmilus
Published: 2014-03-04 19:40:34 +0000 UTC; Views: 3913; Favourites: 91; Downloads: 0
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Description
Another one ispired by Mauricio AntΓ³n's book Sabertooth.Thylacosmilus atrox was the most famous of the marsupial sabertooths. These weird predators lived in South America during the Miocene and Pliocene, when it was isolated from other continents and evolved a really weird and unique fauna.
The sabers of Thylacosmilus were so big they went all the way up the snout inside it's skull. The roots of the fangs are actually above the creature's eyes. It seems they grew continuously much like the incisors of rodents, which might work as a sort of insurance against breaking a tooth. Also, the bite of this 100 kg animal was apparently weaker than that of a domestic cat.
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Comments: 39
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Shouldn't the teeth be covered by lips? Especially considering those flanges likely formed support for a lip "sheath"?
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Quite possible, though there's no direct evidence.
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Actually Mark Witton's take on the matter suggests that it should be sheathed.
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I do find it a plausible idea now (note that this artwork is three years old). Though Mark Witton's opinion, however well-informed it is, is hardly direct evidence.
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I have a feeling the sabre tooth design will evolve in birds.
We have sabre-toothed fish, gorgonopsids, therocephalians, dinocephalians, nimravids, felids, sparrosodonts, crocodiles, snakes, so a bird with pseudo-sabre teeth isn't too much of a stretch.
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Okay, so the crocodile is Pissarachampsa, but where did you get sabretoothed snakes from?
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I was thinking how vipers aim specifically at the throat and neck of their prey for envenomation.
Also the stiletto snake (which has two sabreteeth, which move independently to strike prey)
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Yeah, but they don't have sabreteeth. They use venom, rather than severing an artery and letting their prey die of blood loss.
I'm not sure I'd call those sabreteeth either...
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They still have to bite an artery (to inject venom) precisely which is the point of sabreteeth.
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Technically, but they are only considered sabreteeth if they are elongated (which the snakes have), but also flattened and used to bite an artery in order to cause their prey to bleed to death (neither of which are present in snakes). That's the same reason most therocephalians, as well as predatory dinocephalians are not considered sabretooths. Additionally, I am pretty sure they have to be serrated to be considered sabreteeth...
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so if I got bit by it wouldn't really hurt because my cat bite me and it NEVER hurts and weren't these guys wiped out by Saber toothed cats like Smilodon?
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No.Β
It would hurt because it is the NECK that is driving the teeth, not the jaws.
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Umm, not exactly.
The bite of marsupial sabertooths was very weak, because they did not kill their prey by pressing their jaws together. They sliced the prey's neck (or some other soft and vulnerable part) open using their canines and their strong neck muscles. Kind of like a knife, or possibly a can-opener.
Current fossil record indicates that Thylacosmilus disappeared some time before feline sabertooths reached it, though that might just be because the record is incomplete. So yes, possibly.
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This rendition is absolutely beautiful and just so very lifelike!
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Funny, I just learned about this bloke over the weekend, from a five year old, no less!!
Quite a badass this guy!
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The marsupial sabertooth sometimes gets extremely exaggerated and long sabers and flanges. Nice to see a change from this, mwith a more normally proportioned creature
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Yeah, I was specifically attempting to make it look like a real animal instead of a movie monster. Mammals often have really, really weird and monstrous skulls, but the amount of soft tissue their heads have masks almost all of it.
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I agree, Mammal skulls are the worst. So much muscle and fur and lots of extra stuff covering them
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Yeah. Muscular lips and fleshy noses and external ears and everything.
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That is very good.Β
Also, a quick question. Wasn't Thylacosmilus actually not a marsupial, but a closely related metatherian called sparassodonts? At least that's what I heard.
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Thanks!
Yeah, it seems sparassodonts are not considered to be part of Marsupialia proper at the moment at least. They are a part of Metatheria, though, and could be called marsupials in the broad sense. The common name 'marsupial sabertooth' is pretty widespread, even though it might be a bit misleading.
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Okay, thanks for answering my question!
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The world needs more marsupial sabertooths.
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What is it about the skull that tells us its bite was weak?
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It's the muscle attachment sites. Their size and shape can be measured to reconstruct the muscles that were attached to them in life. You can see a comparison of the jaw muscles of a leopard, a saber-toothed cat and a marsupial sabertooth in this article: www.plosone.org/article/info%3β¦
The jaw muscles of saber-toothed predators are in general small compared to those of, say, modern big cats. Instead, they used their teeth sort of like knives, powered by huge neck muscles. Thylacosmilus takes that to an extreme, though.
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Well, it depends. 
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Nicely done.Β
I need to get that book - I have his fossil dogs and cats ones.Β
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Thanks!
Yeah, you should get this one too. My boyfriend has the dog and cat books, so combined we have a full series.
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So which one of you will be getting The Big Cats of Africa: Past and Present 
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Well, now we're just combining a shared library without claiming ownership to specific books.
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