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In public imagination, the sabre-toothed cat Smilodon ranks alongside Tyrannosaurus rex as the ultimate killing machine. Powerfully built, with upper canines like knives, Smilodon was a fearsome ...

The extinct South American animal made us believe it was as fierce as a saber-tooth cat, but a new study suggests it was a mere scavenger. By Matt Kaplan Smilodon fatalis has its name for a reason.

A very lion-like Smilodon, from Ernest Ingersoll's The Life of Animals (1907). Before they started taking measurements of jawbones, though, the authors of the new study had to consider a few ...

The adolescent saber-toothed cat on a summertime hunt realized too late that she had made a terrible miscalculation. Already the size of a modern-day tiger, with huge canine teeth, she had crept ...

How did the sabertooth cat wield its excess of tooth? Mark Kostich / iStock Of all the vicious smiles to have ever evolved, it’s hard to beat the grin of the aptly named Smilodon. The largest of these ...

A Smilodon fends off vultures at what would later be called the Rancho La Brea tar pits, situated in Los Angeles, California. Painting by Charles R. Knight. The feeding habits of saber-toothed cats ...

On a superficial level, the predatory habits of the saber-toothed cat Smilodon would not seem to be especially mysterious. Traditionally – and incorrectly – restored as a lion with extra-long upper ...