Megantereon
Name:
Megantereon
(Giant beast).
Phonetic: Meg-an-ter-e-on.
Named By: Georges Cuvier - 1824 (Some sources
cite Croizet and Jobert - 1828).
Classification: Chordata, Mammalia, Carnivora,
Felidae, Machairodontinae.
Species: Usually include M. cultridens,
M. falconeri and M. whitei, but may also include M. ekidoit,
M. eurynodon, M. gracilis, M. hesperus, M.
inexpectatus, M. megantereon, M. microta, M. nihowanensis,
M.
spiryleris and M. vakhshensis. Refer
to main text for
details.
Diet: Carnivore.
Size: Approximately 1.2 meters long, there is
some variance between species.
Known locations: Africa, Europe, Asia and North
America.
Time period: Zanclean of the Pliocene through to
possibly as late as the Ionian of the Pleistocene.
Fossil representation: Many specimens, although
they are often fragmentary and incomplete.
Megantereon
has a popular standing within the realm of big cat palaeontology as it
is thought by many to be the ancestor to the considerably more famous
Smilodon
(often incorrectly dubbed the Sabre-toothed tiger).
Megantereon itself is often referred to as a dirk
toothed cat because
while the upper canines are enlarged, they are still smaller and more
gracile than the teeth of the later Smilodon. The
lower jaw however
still has special flanges to house the upper canines when the mouth was
closed, and these teeth are thought to have been the primary tools
for killing prey.
Examining
the post cranial skeleton of Megantereon has
revealed that the living
animal was fairly robust, especially around the fore quarters. This
means that Megantereon was not built for speed and
almost certainly did
not spend its time sprinting after prey across open ground such as
other big cats like Miracinonyx
(often called the ‘American
cheetah’). Instead Megantereon’s hunting
behaviour was most
probably that of an ambush hunter that waited for prey to get close
before pouncing. Megantereon’s size makes it
possible to have climbed
into trees, something that may have been quite easy for it to do
considering the well-developed forelimbs. If Megantereon
took up
position above a path used by travelling herbivores (say to and from
a water source) it would only be a matter of time before potential
prey passed along the path. Megantereon could
then drop down from the
tree to surprise its prey from above.
The
enlarged canines of Megantereon like other similar
big cats are
actually comparatively weak compared to the smaller teeth. This is
because their larger size means that they act like bigger levers which
can magnify sideward forces against the tooth which leads to an easier
tooth break. This is something that a specially adapted predator like
Megantereon could not afford to happen as without
the specialisation it
would lose its edge to stay alive. This is why old ideas of
Megantereon biting into prey and holding on with its
mouth as it was
thrown around while the prey struggled are no longer considered
likely, the teeth were simply not capable of withstanding those kind
of stresses.
A
more likely scenario is that Megantereon would use
its enlarged canines
to inflict a single devastating bite and then back off while the prey
died. Some however point out that the main problem with this kind of
strategy is that the prey would take time to die and would attract
other predators while in its death throes. But how fast an animal
dies from a bite does not depend so much on how it is bitten but where
it is bitten. When ambushing prey Megantereon
probably would not just
lunge and bite the first body part it could, instead it would
probably focus on a key weak area like the neck. Not only does the
neck contain the windpipe, but also important arteries that carry
blood direct from the heart to the head and brain. If Megantereon
could sever an artery like this, something that its large canines
would have easily been capable of, then death for the prey animal
would at most be just a few minutes. The well-developed fore limbs of
Megantereon may have also allowed it to steady prey
as it bit into the
neck, further reducing the risk of dental injury. Unless another
predator had seen the attack as it happened, Megantereon
would be
able to at least get a few mouthfuls of flesh before it was disturbed,
and if adept at climbing and assuming the prey was not too large, it
may have been able to drag its kill into a tree and buy itself more
time to feed before being disturbed by other predators (Such
behaviour can be seen in Leopards today).
Megantereon
has for a long time been thought to have a New World origin because the
oldest fossils came from North America and were dated at being around
four and a half million years old. Other fossils from Europe
(specifically France) are dated at no more than two and a half
million years ago, while most of the African remains only reached up
to three and half million years ago. This thinking was unchallenged
until the discovery of new but very fragmentary material from Africa
(Chad and Kenya) that has been dated to between just over five and a
half and seven million years ago. If this identification and dating
is correct then Megantereon may have originated in
central Africa,
radiating out towards Europe and Asia before crossing the bearing land
bridge into North America.
When
Megantereon disappeared is so far a little easier to
determine. In
North America Megantereon is thought to have
evolved into the first and
smallest species of Smilodon, S.
gracilis, approximately two and
half million years ago. In Europe no remains are known to be younger
than nine hundred thousand years ago, and Megantereon
seems to have
begun to disappear from Africa one and half million years ago until
seven to four hundred thousand years ago where the youngest remains are
known from southern Africa. Asian populations may have been more
stable with remains in China dated to five hundred thousand years ago.
Megantereon
has a long history that dates back to the early days of palaeontology
in the first half of the nineteenth century. Because of this numerous
sets of remains have been attributed to the genus under a large number
of species names. Modern analysis of these remains however suggests
that all of the different species that have been recorded for so long
may actually represent a much smaller number of valid species. Most
palaeontologists recognise M. cultridens, M.
falconeri and M.
whitei, as being valid, but which of the remaining
number remains
valid depends more upon the interpretation of those examining them.
What does not help this matter is that with the exception of one quite
well preserved specimen from France, most of the other sets of
remains are very incomplete and of a fragmentary nature.
Further reading
- Megantereon hesperus from the late Hemphillian of
Florida with
remarks on the phylogenetic relationships of machairodonts (Mammalia,
Felidae, Machairodontinae). - Journal of Paleontology 57(5):892-899 -
A. Berta & H. Galiano - 1983.
- On the presence of Megantereon whitei at the
South Turkwel Hominid
Site, northern Kenya. - Journal of Paleontology - J PALEONTOL 01/2002;
76(5). - Paul Palmqvist - 2002.
- Species Identification in Megantereon: A Reply to Palmqvist - Journal
of Paleontology 76(5):931-933. - Lars Werdelin & Margaret E.
Lewis - 2002.
- Megantereon fossil remains from Renzidong Cave,
Fanchang County,
Anhui Province. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 43(2):122-134. - J.-Y. Liu -
2005.
- A Re-Evaluation of the Diversity of "Megantereon"
(Mammalia,
Carnivora, Machairodontinae) and the Problem of Species Identification
in Extinct Carnivores. - Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology - Vol. 27,
No. 1 (Mar. 12, 2007), pp. 160-175 - Paul Palmqvist, Vanessa
Torregrosa, Juan A. P�rez-Claros , Bienvenido Mart�nez-Navarro
& Alan Turner - 2007.
- Osteology and ecology of Megantereon cultridens
SE311 (Mammalia;
Felidae; Machairodontinae), a sabrecat from the Late Pliocene – Early
Pleistocene of Sen�ze, France - Zoological Journal of the Linnean
Society vol 151, issue 4, p833-884. - Per Christiansen & Jan S.
Adolfssen - 2007.
- The African species Megantereon whitei from the
Early Pleistocene of
Monte Argentario (South Tuscany, Central Italy) [L’esp�ce africaine
Megantereon whitei du Pl�istoc�ne inf�rieur du Mont
Argentario (Sud de
la Toscane, Italie centrale)] - Comptes Rendus Palevol vol7 issue 8,
p601-606. - Raffaele Sardella, Mauro Petrucci & Lorenzo Rook -
2008.
- New sabre-toothed cats in the Late Miocene of Toros Menalla (Chad). -
Systematic palaeontology (Vertebrate palaeontology) Comptes Rendus
Palevol 9, 221-227. - L. De Bonis, S. Peigne, H. T. Mackaye, A. Likius,
P. Vignaud & M. Brunet - 2010.
- First discovery of Megantereon skull from
southern China. -
Historical Biology. 0: 1–10. - Min Zhu, Qigao Jiangzuo, Dagong Qin,
Changzhu Jin, Chengkai Sun, Yuan Wang, Yaling Yan & Jinyi Liu -
2020.
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