Arthur Ament, age 13, of Oromacto, N.B., Canada, for his question:
WHEN DID THE SABER TOOTHED TIGER LIVE?
This mighty cat was in his prime about 40 million years ago, when the developing mammals were beginning to take over the earth. Then he survived through long ages of mild, moist weather. He even survived the ice ages of the past million years and met his doom a mere 10,000 years ago.
Paleontologists tell us that the cat family got its start back in the Eocene Period of geological history, some 55 million years ago. The original ancestor seems to have been a weasel size mammal with a tapering snout, short legs and a long, furry tail. Almost from the beginning, there was a family tendency to divide into two branches. One branch survived to become the assortment of large and small cats that share our world.
The other branch of the ancient cat family included muscular, rather clumsy predators with humped shoulders and supersize canine teeth. In the Oligocene Period, which began some 40 million years ago, some~of these catty cousins were as big, if not bigger than modern tigers. They were named the saber toothed tigers, or saber toothed cats, because their canine teeth were shaped like curved saber swords. Some of these deadly weapons were eight or nine inches long.
We know that these prehistoric predators lived in the Americas. Their fossil remains were preserved in the tar of the La Brea pits of Los Angeles, Calif. In fact, this is where those fossil fangs were first found. We know that they shared their world with huge vultures, giant wolves and enormous cave bears for these fossils also were trapped in the tacky tar.
From this period, the fossil records of the fabulous cat continues on through the following 40 million years. They were here when the ice glaciers inched southward over much of North America. Then, about 10,000 years ago, this branch of cat family became extinct.
No one knows why the saber toothed cats became extinct, after such a long story of successful survival. But in this case we cannot blame ourselves. If there were humans around at the time, certainly they were not powerful enough to wipe out all those mighty cats. Maybe they failed to change with the times when their favorite food animals became swift enough to outrun them.