Homotherium
Homotherium is a genus of fossil felids (popularly known as saber-toothed cats) that lived between 5 million and 10,000 years ago, during the Pliocene and Pleistocene periods.. However, Homotherium belongs to the tribe commonly known as scimitar-toothed cats (Homotherini). Also included in this tribe are the genera Nimravides, Amphimachairodus, Lokotunjailurus and Xenosmilus.
At the time of their greatest expansion they inhabited most of Africa, Europe, Asia and America. Such a vast distribution and the discovery of hundreds of remains in numerous localities have allowed the identification of many species, the best known being Homotherium serum from North America and the European species Homotherium latidens. The species H. serum was one of the last sabertooths to disappear, along with those of another more popular genus, Smilodon.
Features
Although the size varies from species to species, they are all around the size of a lion. It is striking how stylized their body is compared to other cats, whether they are saber-toothed or not, since they are equipped with an elongated skull and body, as well as legs of considerable length, which shows a high adaptation to running (estimated at 96 km/h in short stretches). The long tusks typical of macairodonts are present, although not nearly as developed as in Smilodon or Megantereon, but much shorter, curved (so sometimes Homoters are called "feline - scimitar") and finos. When the animal kept its mouth closed, only the tip was visible. Continuing with the general trend of the group, the homoterians also had highly developed forequarters, in order to overcome the resistance of the prey they fed on before sinking their fangs into their necks.
Finds of several skeletons together, sometimes accumulated over generations in a single location, and among which are subjects with healed fractures and disease, suggest that at least the later species lived in packs and cooperated to hunt.
Evolutionary history
The genus Homotherium originated in Africa about 5 million years ago, probably evolving from an increasingly specialized population of Machairodus, another saber-toothed feline.. Examples of African species are Homotherium aethiopicum and Homotherium hadarensis, occasionally found in the same deposits as some primitive hominids, such as australopithecines, which they occasionally consumed. However, these animals gradually adapted to the pursuit of large running herbivores, such as antelopes and equids, which were increasingly abundant in Africa as the primitive tropical forest was replaced by vast expanses of herbaceous savannahs.
3 million years ago they left Africa and progressively colonized Eurasia and America, giving rise to many more species. In South America it is known from a few remains from northern Venezuela, classified as Homotherium venezuelensis from the Middle Pleistocene, contemporaneous with the arrival of Smilodon to the subcontinent. The European Homotherium latidens, the largest of the genus (1.10 meters high and about 200 kg in weight), appears recorded in practically all the sites of the old continent from this period. Their tooth marks appear on all sorts of animal remains of a certain size, including the skull of a Homo erectus from Georgia. The success of this species in Europe was such that it displaced other saber-tooths that had been in the region for longer, and it maintained its hegemony without problems until about 900,000 years ago when the ancestors of the cave lion arrived on the continent, also native of Africa. The population of H. latidens and other species (such as Homotherium ultimum from China) began to decline throughout the Old World, disappearing from most of its regions half a million years ago. Only a few remains found in what is now England and the North Sea seem to indicate that the species H. latidens, although in very small numbers, survived in this remote area until the Late Pleistocene, around 30,000 years ago.
North America remained unaffected by this decline, although only one species, Homotherium serum, managed to subsequently adapt to the climatic changes associated with the new ice age. The range of this species extended in the late Pleistocene from Alaska to northern Mexico, being present equally in cold tundras and forested ecosystems. If this species survived until such late times, it was through greater specialization in hunting certain prey, specifically baby mammoths and mastodons. Their remains (mainly milk teeth) accumulate by the thousands in one of the most impressive dens of homoteres, the Friesenhahn cave in Texas, United States. In it have appeared the remains of 30 homoterios and those corresponding to almost 500 pups of proboscideans piled up for generations. Thanks to this very selective diet, the North American homoterians did not show competition from the lions when they arrived in America about 80,000 years ago, as their cousins from other continents had before.
However, this same "savior" It was the one that determined its end when the last ice age ended. The resulting climate changes made the climate drier and hotter, reducing the populations of mammoths and mastodons on which they now depended for their existence. When the great proboscideans became extinct, the last Homoterians went with them forever.