Q: What was the fiercest prehistoric cat of them all? -Irvine
A: Well well well, Irvine. This is a great question. Obviously, sabre toothed cats and wooly mammoths and the like came long after the time of the dinosaurs, in the Early Pleistocene. You bring up a great point about the cats though, because most everyone knows about the famed Smilodon AKA “sabre toothed tiger” but did you know there were many other sabre toothed cats at this time?
There are at least 40 known genera of sabre toothed cats from the Pleistocene, and not all of them even come from the same family! For some reason, multiple groups of mammals evolved to have giant sharp teeth protruding out of their mouths. Nature has a funny way of experimenting with ways to eat other animals!
We can’t really say for sure which one was the MOST fierce, because you have to admit they’re all pretty gnarly. We’d have to go with Smilodon though, as they were the biggest of all of them. Some of them weighed up to 1,200 lbs (500 kg) !! That is how much a grizzly bear can weigh. Yeah, these guys were nasty. Add giant teeth that grew to 11 inches (28 cm) long and you’ve got a prehistoric killing machine on your hands.
-AFootball
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