Sabretooths

Op 25-12-2007 13:11, in artikel fkqs0q$o1d$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Mario
Petrinovich <mario.petrinovic1@xxxxxxxxxxx> schreef:

Mario, what were your arguments to think that sabretooths were semi-aq.?

Actually, everything that is known about them.
They have long, brittle canines. Those canines cannot withstand
forces put upon them on land. In water it is completly different situation,
forces are managable.
Then their stocky built (not very good for catlike life) implied to
me that they might be aquatic.

And short tails?

Then the fact that they could survive injuries that normal cat
wouldn't survive without living in pack. In aquatic situation they could
survive it living solitary.

Why IYO?

Additional stuff helped. The thing that they were found in La Bra
pit in such a big numbers; the fact that world in the past was much more
wet; the fact that I figured a scenario which can explain both, why those
canines are so long (only upper ones), and why they are laterary compressed
(eye piercing). I mean, lions of today would also like to cut the arteries,
only this would make their teeth brittle. Maybe this isn't the right word.
They were elastic (not brittle), but they were breakable, because they were
lateraly thin, and long.
Actually, everything points me to that scenario, and nothing points
against it. Take a look at clouded leopard, which lives in pretty wet
situation, and hunts proboscis monkeys. Proboscis monkeys run away from
predators by jumping into water. I would say that scenes like that were
pretty normal in the past. -- Mario Petrinovich

Thanks, Mario.

--Marc

.

Relevant Pages