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ClassyCthulhu In reply to History1980 [2020-05-06 09:14:16 +0000 UTC]

He literally said in the description "This one's on the fantasy side." He knows m8.

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chaiyote In reply to History1980 [2019-04-27 01:27:48 +0000 UTC]

d...do you know what smilodon looks like

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Brutonyx In reply to SonicZilla150 [2018-12-16 15:52:25 +0000 UTC]

Extravagant structures like the mane of a male lion and the ear tufts of the caracal are typically used as social signals to enhance body language or display the health and strength of an individual, with the manes of lions being especially interesting in being sexually dimorphic.
It is more than likely that saber-toothed cats did have some kind of furry feature to aid them in communication with each other, but the idea of a maned male saber-tooth doesn't seem likely given their lack of sexual dimorphism in body size: modern carnivorous mammals that show this limited size difference between sexes tend to lack the soft tissue sexual dimorphism as well.
Of course this is just a rather conservative method to reconstruct these animals and the possibility still exists (we could be grossly failing to approximate the appearance of a few species), but it remains speculation for now.

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Ollie-WanKenobi In reply to SonicZilla150 [2018-12-16 10:07:46 +0000 UTC]

Who's to say it's social? The jury is still out on that.
I for one would wager that Smilodon fatalis at least hunted alone, considering that both males and females were basically identical in size, build and dentition. However, they could've been more social than most other felids in other areas of their lives. The rearing of offspring, perhaps. 

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Brutonyx In reply to Ollie-WanKenobi [2018-12-16 12:37:33 +0000 UTC]

Several lines of evidence suggest that Smilodon fatalis may have benefited from some sort of social grouping, but the very moderate degree of sexual dimorphism in the species suggests that it would not have a harem system like that of modern lions: studies of the Rancho la Brea sample of Smilodon fatalis have pointed to a very moderate dimorphism, smaller than that of modern lions and possibly comparable to that of modern wolves (Van Valkenburgh and Sacco 2002). Also other studies (e. g. Meachen-Samueles and Binder 2010) point to a small to nonexistent dimorphism.
Because among living carnivores a high degree of dimorphism is always associated with a high level of competition among the males for access to the females (Gittleman and Van Valkenburgh 1997), a small or absent dimorphism in the sabertooth cat suggests reduced competition, and the authors of the studies agree on the possibility that Smilodon was monogamous like canids rather than polygamous like extant cats, a condition that could imply the presence of pair bonding as in jackals or pack life as in wolves, with helpers from previous years' litters grouping around a monogamous alpha pair (Antón 2013).

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Ollie-WanKenobi In reply to Brutonyx [2018-12-17 07:08:18 +0000 UTC]

Ah. Very fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing.

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Brutonyx In reply to Ollie-WanKenobi [2018-12-17 07:27:10 +0000 UTC]

You're welcome 😁

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Ollie-WanKenobi In reply to Brutonyx [2018-12-17 07:50:44 +0000 UTC]

Now I have something to reference when imagining Smilodon life. Jackals have never been one a reference I would've expected, but one of the reasons I find Nature so fascinating is because it's so very often unpredictable.

 Live long and prosper. 

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Saberrex In reply to Brutonyx [2018-12-16 13:17:45 +0000 UTC]

Well-spoken.

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