Meet Thylacosmilus – the sabertooth predator you’ve probably never heard of. Unlike big cats, this fearsome hunter had massive fangs and a pouch, making it one of the strangest mammals to ever walk ...

Imagine a saber-toothed predator—but instead of being a big cat, it’s a marsupial. Thylacosmilus was a bizarre prehistoric mammal with huge fangs, yet it carried its young in a pouch. How did ...

To reach that conclusion, a team of researchers first used computer simulations on 235 teeth representing 95 different meat-eating mammals — including 25 from various saber-toothed ones. Then they 3-D ...

Another example is Thylacosmilus, which died out about 2.5 million years ago and was most closely related to marsupials. Sabre teeth were last seen in Smilodon, often called sabre-toothed tigers ...

Paleontologists recently revisited a trove of fossils found in a South African quarry and found two previously unknown species of sabertooth cats in their mix. The 5.2-million-year-old cats are ...

Thylacosmilus was a member of a group known as sparassodonts - highly carnivorous mammals related to living marsupials. Most resembled placental carnivores like cats and dogs in having forward-facing ...

Thylacosmilus ’ eyes were positioned on the side of its head much like a prey species, such as a cow or antelope, rather than facing forward like a typical top predator.

"Thylacosmilus was able to compensate for having its eyes on the side of its head by sticking its orbits out somewhat and orienting them almost vertically, to increase visual field overlap as much as ...

However, Thylacosmilus was more likely the animal would “lie in ambush, blend in with the scenery and wait for a likely prey item to come along,” said study coauthor Ross D.E. MacPhee, a ...

However, Thylacosmilus was more likely the animal would “lie in ambush, blend in with the scenery and wait for a likely prey item to come along,” said study coauthor Ross D.E. MacPhee, a ...