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Qilong β Xenosmilus, the Panda Cat
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Published: 2005-02-27 10:44:50 +0000 UTC; Views: 11407; Favourites: 195; Downloads: 830
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Description
Based on the skeleton of the so-called "Panda Cat," Xenosmilus is a short-fanged (sabre-toothed) cat with large, robust arms, but walked on it's heels like a bear does. I based this partially on the style of Mauricio AntΓ³n, but mostly it was my own "mammal" style here.Edit: I should say that the reason it's called the "Panda Cat" is because what Virginia Naples and Larry Martin refer to as panda-like features, including short, robust limbs and a large, almost opposable true "thumb," the first digit has a huge claw and points inwards instead of being short and angled like a normal cat's "thumb."
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Comments: 50
Xenosmilus is cool. Didn't know they had pseudo thumbs. Perhaps.....in some far off, alternate universe....they became thundercats.
Do you know exactly what their canines were used for? I thought for some reason they were used to rip off glyptodon plates, but I don't think that true.Β
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So the cats did indeed have plantigrade members? I thought "Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives" by Alan Turner dispelled the plantigrade stance in Homotherium. Didn't know Xenosmilus walked like a bear.
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the Scimitar cat (Homotherium) was built more like a hyena.
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Virginia Naples has concluded that the limb material shows a plantigrade pes (probably digitigrade manus, as shown) due to the articulations of the tibia and ankle and proportions of the foot (much shorter). I think it's a good assumption to make.
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Yay, Xenosmilus! I love seeing reconstructions of these, and yours is a very nice one. I like your pencil work. I also like how you tried the "loose lips" as Naples suggested they had.
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Yeah, I never liked the "tight", perfect lip look either, and my familiarity with cats has shown me that it is highly unlikely they had "perfect" faces. Here's for ragged, often assymetrical and more realistic faces! The eyes are too big, though. *shrug* Win some, lose some.
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I am IN LOVE with this! I want you to teach me how to draw like this! :33
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I do like it myself. This took me a lot of time and practice to get to. It's not something I can teach in a single sitting. My best advice to you is to look at photos of animals and copy them. Start general, then try to work on details. Try to match how fur or feathers look, or scales or bare skin. Once you get a general idea of how things should look, you can focus on specifics like ruffled fur, splayed feathers, and what not. It helps to get a good grounding in biology, so I also recommend you look at how muscles are arranged and the bone structure beneath them. This will help you immensely when you start trying repose your figures, so you can use the correct posture and get the muscle tone right, before you pop on the flesh and fur/feathers/skin.
Note: this cat started out as a skeleton, then got muscled, then got fleshed, then I outlined the fur and such, and only then did I start detailing. But before that, it was a study in bone structure. Most biological artists start this way, because it is the easiest way to work in a creature-medium. That way, you animal looks like it is actually doing what you want it to look like it is doing.
Most of all: Be patient with yourself, and don't give up. It helps to give yourself a little time to stop, focus on something else, then come back to the work. Fresh eyes see things better.
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Thank you. 
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Your picture of the panda cat is really amazing
It looks great c:
The shading and fur texture is so well done and the creature itself is amazing c:
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Thank you! I was in a fur-heavy stage at that time.
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Your welcome c:
It looks very cute x3
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Wow, what an interesting creature. I love reading about extinct animals - especially mammals - but this one was new to me. The bear-like posture is very interesting and makes it seem different from many other felines built for stalking and short bursts of speed. One has to wonder what sort of life it led, how it hunted etc
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Yes, the habits of the cat are, fair to say, relatively unknown, but may have operated much like a very brawny lion/bear mix. That is, an ambush predator more given to grappling than to running, and its teeth to rendering than to precision biting. Very cool.
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Short-fanged sabre-tooth = oxymoron.
Once again, cool art. Very strange cat!
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Ah, you miss a distinction here: In the sabrecats, the are two types of long-toothed cats, the dirk-toothed cats which include Smilodon, where the teeth are long and somewhat rounded in cross-section, and the sabre-toothed cats, which include our pal Xenosmilus here, where the teeth are very narrow in cross-section, slender but short. Sabre-cats typically fall into one or the other category.
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You drew this~ ! I used this for my school project~ At first I thought it was only a google image, but~ This is sweet~
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I'll expect my royalties in the mail.
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amaizing!!!!!!!!
did you know that xenosmilus means strange knife
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Yes. It's not why I chose to illustrate it, but it does help.
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Beautiful reconstruction!
It's to me the most enigmatic of whole felid species, with having less elongated scimitar tooth with very robust body design. They perhaps hunted a bit differently from both Smilodontines and Homotherines.
I like the nickname, "Panda cat"
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Yeah, and so far, the way I've depicted it (posteriot platigrafy) may be incorrect and it was digitigrade like most classic "sabretooths." Still, a very cool cat.
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Cats will walk plantigrade, especially when stalking their prey, so your restoration is just fine on that score. Footprint evidence strongly indicates theropods walked plantigrade at times. probably stalking their prey. I think Greg Paul came up with the idea to explain some anomalies in the Paluxy theropod tracks, and I have to agree with it.
As a matter of fact, when cats are resting, they will very often rest on entire entire hind feet.
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It's not about whether they will walk plantigrade, it's that it was chosen to represent standard walking, and in this case may be very wrong.
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Were the feet bear-like? If so, it was probably habitually plantigrade.
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SO! Panda Po Cat is stalking his food, eh???? Does he know Kung Fu? Is there a Shifu behind the scenes? Does he stalk dumplings? Only the artist knows for sure!
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Of course, a herbivorous cat is impossible, right?
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Cute, it has a certain charm to it i'm unable to place. i really like it.
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I really like this art work. It's VERY well done!
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Thank you. It is my favorite of all images I've got up so far, and that's why it's on the front page right now.
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I love your art
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i can see it working better with its hind legs stretched a bit more, butt lifted,
otherwise a good job, of course
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New research suggests that it didn't walk on its ankels, perhaps. The work is in prep.
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Wow this looks awesome!! Wonderful job =] me like it alot.
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ooo I love the pose and the tail looks cute short. and omg the shading is soo good. awesome job
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Yeah, his tail is very short, and the idea was the pose, it wasn't very well thought out. I usually draw the skeleton first, erase it, and draw the body around that, so the skeleton looked nice at first 
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it's beautiful, i love his face 
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