Homotherium
| Homotherium | ||||||||||||
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Skeletal reconstruction of Homotherium serum in the Texas Memorial Museum at the University of Texas at Austin |
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| Pliocene to Pleistocene | ||||||||||||
| 5 million years to 12,000 years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Homotherium | ||||||||||||
| Fabrini , 1890 | ||||||||||||
Homotherium is a genus of extinct saber-toothed cats from the Pliocene and Pleistocene . Remains of thegenusalso known as the scimitar cat have been found in Africa, Asia, Europe and America. It reached about the size of a lion and survived in North America until the end of the last Ice Age (Wisconsin Glacial) about 12,000 years ago.
features
Homotherium was very large. Large forms from the Old Pleistocene , which were found in the Thuringian Untermaßfeld , are estimated to be around 200–400 kg. The animals reached a total length of about 1.5 to 2.0 m and a shoulder height of 0.9 to 1.1 m, which corresponds to the size of a modern lion or tiger . The shape was feline, but compared to other saber-toothed cats, the scimitar cat has some morphological peculiarities. Although they were quite large and powerful animals, they were much slimmer and longer-legged than, for example, Smilodon or Megantereon , which were also common in Eurasia, Africa and America at the same time. As with Smilodon , the front legs were longer than the back legs, resulting in a sloping back line. In contrast to this genus, Homotherium had relatively short canines that were also more curved, flat, jagged and razor-sharp. With these weapons it was more likely to cause lacerations than deep stab wounds to its victims. The molars were relatively weak and unsuitable for biting into bones. The skull was more elongated than that of Smilodon's . As with other saber-toothed cats, the tail was quite short.
The claws do not seem to have been fully retractable on Homotherium , which poses a certain mystery to science. Possibly, similar to today's cheetahs, dogs and hyenas, they served as spikes to enable persistent pursuits.
Types and distribution
Homotherium has been found in Africa since the earliest Pliocene around 5 million years ago and is believed to have evolved from Machairodus . Until the Pleistocene, it inhabited the African continent, Eurasia and North America . The last finds from Africa are 1.5 million years old.
Homotherium latidens
A number of different species ( nestianus , sainzelli , crenatidens , nihowanensis , ultimum ) have been described from Eurasia , which differed mainly in the body size and shape of the canines. However, if one considers the intra-species fluctuation in body size of today's big cats, it is not unlikely that all of them can be traced back to a single species of Homotherium latidens . Homotherium ethiopicum and Homotherium hadarensis were described from the early Pleistocene of Africa, but they differ only slightly from the Eurasian forms.
From the tradition of fossils, the overall picture shows that Homotherium latidens, a European species of saber-toothed cat , became extinct in the Middle Pleistocene around 500,000–300,000 years ago. Although Homotherium latidens was widespread in the Old and Early Middle Pleistocene and its remains are found relatively frequently, complete skeletal finds are rare. Several skulls were found in the Catalan site of Incarcal ( province of Girona ), other fossil remains come from Senèze ( Auvergne ). The chronologically most recent fossils found in a secured context include those from Steinheim an der Murr and from Schöningen (Lower Saxony), where the Schöningen spears were found . Both sites are around 300,000 years old; four teeth and a few leg bones were discovered on the latter in 2012.
These last confirmed fossil finds from the Middle Pleistocene are contrasted by some finds and findings that postulate a survival of Homotherium until more recently. Some teeth were reported from the Upper Pleistocene layers of the English Kents Cavern , here investigations of trace elements showed different values than fossils deposited at the same time, such as those of hyenas , so that the objects were probably brought in from outside anthropogenically. In 2003 a lower jaw fragment from the North Sea was published, which was discovered in March 2000 while net fishing in the fairway to the port of Rotterdam and which was dated to only about 28,000 BP with the radiocarbon dating. If the findings are authentic and the fossil has not only reached this place in modern times, it would show that the saber-toothed cat was still a contemporary of the European Cro-Magnon man . As a further indication of the survival of the saber-toothed cat in the New Pleistocene Eurasia, a 16 cm tall Upper Paleolithic figurine from the Isturitz Cave in the French Pyrenees was cited. The high snout should be reminiscent of a saber-toothed cat. This interpretation contradicts the authors of a study from 2009, which did not find any clear similarities with Homotherium in the revision of the Upper Paleolithic art . The cited figure, which the Czech zoologist and author Vratislav Mazák only had as a photo, has a back line characteristic of cave lions , while saber-toothed cats have a sloping back line. Incidentally, in the considerable number of Felid representations in the Upper Palaeolithic minor art and cave painting, there is not a single other image that contains references to the saber-toothed cat. In contrast, there are numerous images of the cave lion. If homotherium was found in the New Pleistocene of Eurasia, it must have been extremely rare.
Homotherium serum
A very similar species, Homotherium serum, lived in North America from the Upper Pliocene to the Upper Pleistocene . Her remains have been found in numerous locations between Alaska and Texas. The American homotherium probably occurred alongside Smilodon in southern North America . In the north of the continent, however, it was the only saber-toothed cat. In the past, the American species was often referred to as Dinobastis . Homotherium may have developed from Machairodus in the Pliocene . In North America, Homotherium survived until about 12,000 years ago, so that the population of the Clovis culture still encountered it.
A particularly well-known place where Homotherium serum was found is the Friesenhahn Cave in what is now Texas. In addition to the remains of hundreds of young mammoths, the skeletons of 30 Homotherium and several specimens of the Pleistocene wolf Canis dirus were found here.
More types
Recently, homotherium was detected for the first time in South America. The form was given the species name Homotherium venezuelensis . The fossils date from the early to mid-Pleistocene and were found together with other species, such as the saber-toothed cat Smilodon at the El Breal de Orocual site in Monagas in northern Venezuela. The landscape in which Homotherium lived there was likely to have resembled a savannah, similar to today's Llanos .
Way of life
The finds from the Friesenhahn Cave in particular allow conclusions to be drawn about the way of life and in particular the feeding habits of these animals. In addition to numerous skeletons of young and adult Homotherium , the remains of over 200 young prairie mammoths ( Mammuthus columbii ) were found in this cave . Almost all of them were around 2 years old, which corresponds exactly to the age at which young elephants occasionally move away from their mothers and venture their first explorations away from the herd. In some areas of Africa, young African elephants at this age often fall prey to lions, which allows a certain comparison with regard to the feeding and hunting of Homotherium and some lion populations. This suggests that the saber-toothed cats surprised them away from the herd and quickly inflicted the fatal wound on them with their long canine teeth. They will later drag their victims into the cave to care for their young. Since only very few other prey animals were found there besides the mammoths, one can basically rule out that the animals only fed on dead animals. Such a specialization of the prey in species and age structure is not compatible with a scavenger. For this reason, one can also rule out that Canis dirus dragged the mammoths into the cave.
Due to the assumed large prey animals and the fact that Homotherium was built relatively slim compared to today's lions, it is assumed that these cats acted in packs. The sloping back line, the slim construction of the limbs and the weak claws indicate that Homotherium was a persistent runner and preferred open habitats such as steppes.
Systematics
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Internal systematics of the Machairodontinae according to Piras et al. 2018
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Homotherium is a genus from the subfamily of the saber-toothed cats (Machairodontinae) and the family of the cats (Felidae). The extinct group of saber-toothed cats, characterized by their greatly elongated and laterally flattened upper canines and associated adaptations of the skull morphology, can be found in fossils for the first time in the course of the Middle Miocene around 15 million years ago . Their distribution area covered Eurasia , Africa and North America as well as South America . They are considered a side branch of cats. According to molecular genetic analyzes, this separated from the lineage of the other cats in the Lower Miocene around 20 million years ago, which thus happened before the point in time when today's cats became more diversified. Traditionally, the saber-toothed cats are divided into two to three tribes : the Homotheriini , the Smilodontini and the Metailurini . The Homotheriini with Homotherium as a character form are characterized by saber-tooth-like, the Smilodontini as a relatives group around Smilodon by more dagger-like and the Metailurini, whose type form is Metailurus , by significantly shorter canine teeth. The latter looked more like today's big cats (Pantherinae) and are therefore sometimes placed outside of the saber-toothed cats. According to genetic data, the Homotheriini and the Smilodontini split off from one another 18 million years ago. The separation, which goes back a long way, advocates the division of the saber-toothed cats into different tribes.
Homotherium differs from other representatives of the tribe in that it has larger and more curved upper and lower incisors , the reduced diastema between the rearmost upper incisor and the canine, more clearly flattened upper canine teeth and the loss of the anterior (second) premolars in the upper and lower jaw some other special features on the skull. The form first appeared in the Lower Pliocene around 5 to 4 million years ago; early finds come from Odessa in the Ukraine and from Koobi Fora in Kenya . It has the largest known distribution area of all saber-toothed cats, which extended over the three classic continental areas Eurasia, Africa and North America, but also grazed the northern part of South America. Traditionally, several types are distinguished. In some early representatives, the third premolars were still enlarged, which separates them from the later relatives with smaller premolars and justifies a separation as a chronospecies. Sometimes this is called Homotherium davitasvilii . In particular, the division of the late forms into the species Homotherium serum, which is largely restricted to North America, and the Eurasian representative Homotherium latidens is to be viewed as critical according to some scientists. Skull morphological investigations from 2014 on finds from Incarcal in northeastern Spain and from the area around Fairbanks in Alaska in comparison with other fossil remains show that there is a high degree of variation within these later representatives of Homotherium , which does not justify a division into separate species. Accordingly, all of these forms would correspond to the Eurasian Homotherium latidens . Sometimes the variation is so strong that it also includes the Villafranchium form Homotherium crenatidens . However, there seem to be some differences to the members from more southern areas in North America, which in turn speaks for the independence of Homotherium serum in this area. In contrast, in the genetic studies already mentioned, the Homotherium forms from North America and Eurasia were so closely interlinked that this again does not support a division into different species.
The genus Homotherium was first scientifically described in 1890 by Emilio Fabrini . He examined the Upper Pliocene and Lower Pleistocene finds of saber-tooth cats, especially from the Arno area in Tuscany , and subsequently separated the larger forms as Homotherium from the then already known genus Machairodus . Richard Owen had already examined the first fossils of Homotherium in the form of teeth from Kents Cavern in England in 1846, but then placed them in the newly created species Machairodus latidens . The term homotherium was rarely used after its introduction. Only with new discoveries from the Omo in Ethiopia and from Saint Vallier in France in the 1940s and 1950s did it prevail.
literature
- Miles Barton: Wild America. Witnesses to the Ice Age. Vgs, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-8025-1558-7 .
- Alan Turner: The big cats and their fossil relatives. Columbia University Press, New York NY 1997, ISBN 0-231-10229-1 .
Web links
- Homotherium on "cenozoicpark"
- Homotherium skeleton from the Friesenhahn cave
- In 2014 archaeologists unearthed remains of the saber-toothed cat "Homotherium latidens", which are 300,000 years old, during excavations in Schöningen, in eastern Lower Saxony. This Schöninger find is the first of its kind in northern Germany.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helmut Hemmer: The Feliden from the Epivillafranchium of Untermassfeld. In: Kahlke, R.-D. (Ed.): The Pleistocene of Untermassfeld near Meiningen (Thuringia). Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum 40 (3), 2002, pp. 699–782.
- ^ Helmut Hemmer: Out of Asia: A Paleoecological Scenario of Man and his Carnivorous Competitors in the European Pleistocene. ERAUL 92, 2000, p. 99–106 pdf ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ a b Jordi Serangeli, Thijs Van Kolfschoten, Britt M. Starkovich and Ivo Verheijen: The European saber-toothed cat (Homotherium latidens) found in the “Spear Horizon” at Schöningen (Germany). Journal of Human Evolution 89, 2015, pp. 172-180.
- ↑ a b Mauricio Anton et al .: CO-existence of scimitar-toothed cats, lions and hominins in the European Pleistocene. Implications of the post-cranial anatomy of Homotherium latidens (Owen) for comparative palaeoecology. Quaternary Science Reviews 24 (10-11), 2005, pp. 1287-1301, doi: 10.1016 / j.quascirev.2004.09.008 .
- ^ A b Alan Turner: The Evolution of the Guild of Larger Terrestrial Carnivores during the Plio-Pleistocene in Africa. Geobios 23 (3), 1990, pp. 349-368, doi: 10.1016 / 0016-6995 (90) 80006-2 .
- ↑ Julià Maroto, Angel Galobart Lorente, Joan Pons-Moyà, Mauricio Antón: Descripción del material de "Homotherium latidens" (Owen) de los yacimientos del Pleistoceno inferior de Incarcal (Girona, NE de la Península Ibérica). Paleontologia i evolució 34, 2003, pp. 99-141
- ↑ Karl Adam: The importance of the pleistozan mammal fauna of Central Europe for the history of the Ice Age. Stuttgart Contributions to Natural History 78, 1961, pp. 1–34.
- ↑ Donald A. McFarlane and Joyce Lundberg: On the occurrence of the scimitar-toothed cat, Homotherium latidens (Carnivora; Felidae), at Kents Cavern, England. Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (4), 2013, pp. 1629-1635, doi: 10.1016 / j.jas.2012.10.032
- ↑ Jelle WF Reumer et al .: Late Pleistocene Survival of the Saber-toothed Cat Homotherium in northwestern Europe. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 23 (1), 2003, pp. 260-262, [[doi: 10.1671 / 0272-4634 (2003) 23 [260: LPSOTS] 2.0.CO; 2]].
- Jump up ↑ Dick Mol, Wilrie van Logchem, Kees van Hooijdonk, Remie Bakker: The Saber-toothed Cat of the North Sea. Uitgeverij DrukWare, KS Norg, 2007 ISBN 90-78707-04-6 .
- ^ Vratislav Mazák: On a supposed prehistoric representation of the Pleistocene scimitar cat, Homotherium Farbrini, 1890 (Mammalia; Machairodontinae). Zeitschrift für Mammalskunde 35, 1970, pp. 359-362.
- ↑ a b Mauricio Antón et al .: Soft tissue reconstruction of Homotherium latidens (Mammalia, Carnivora, Felidae). Implications for the possibility of representations in Palaeolithic art. Geobios 42 (5), 2009, pp. 541-551, doi: 10.1016 / j.geobios.2009.02.003 .
- ↑ Ernst Probst: Saber-toothed cats: From Machairodus to Smilodon. Grin-Verlag, 1990, p. 106.
- ^ Ascanio D. Rincón, Francisco J. Prevosti, and Gilberto E. Parra: New saber-toothed cat records (Felidae: Machairodontinae) for the Pleistocene of Venezuela, and the Great American Biotic Interchange. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 31 (2), 2011, doi: 10.1080 / 02724634.2011.550366 .
- ↑ a b c Paolo Pirasa, Daniele Silvestro, Francesco Carotenuto, Silvia Castiglione, Anastassios Kotsakis, Leonardo Maiorino, Marina Melchionna, Alessandro Mondanaro, Gabriele Sansalone, Carmela Serio, Veronica Anna Vero, Pasquale Raia: Evolution of the sabertooth mandible: A deadly ecomorphological specialization. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 496, 2018, pp. 166–174, doi: 10.1016 / j.palaeo.2018.01.034 .
- ↑ Chris Widga, Tara L. Fulton, Larry D. Martin, Beth Shapiro: Homotherium serum and Cervalces from the Great Lakes Region, USA: geochronology, morphology and ancient DNA. Boreas 41, 2012, pp. 546-556, doi: 10.1111 / j.1502-3885.2012.00267.x .
- ↑ a b Johanna LA Paijmans, Ross Barnett, M. Thomas P. Gilbert, M. Lisandra Zepeta-Mendoza, Jelle WF Reumer, John de Voss, Grant Zazula, Doris Nagel, Gennady F. Baryshnikov, Jennifer A. Leonard, Nadine Rohland , Michael V. Westbury, Axel Barlow, Michael Hofreiter: Evolutionary history of saber-toothed cats based on ancient mitogenomics. Current Biology 27, 2017, pp. 3330-3336, doi: 10.1016 / j.cub.2017.09.033 .
- ↑ Tatyanna Ewald, LV Hills, Shayne Tolman and Brian Kooyman: Scimitar cat (Homotherium serum Cope) from southwestern Alberta, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Science 55 (1), 2018, pp. 8-17, doi: 10.1139 / cjes-2017-0130 .
- ^ A b M. Antón, MJ Salesa, A. Galobart and ZJ Tseng: The Plio-Pleistocene scimitar-toothed felid genus Homotherium Fabrini, 1890 (Machairodontinae, Homotherini): diversity, palaeogeography and taxonomic implications. Quaternary Science Reviews 96, 2014, pp. 259-268, doi: 10.1016 / j.quascirev.2013.11.022 .
- ↑ Emilio Fabrini: Machairodus (Meganthereon) del Val d'Arno superiore. Bollettino del R. Comitato geologico d'Italia 21, 1890, pp. 121-144 and 161-177 (p. 176) ( [1] ).
- ^ Richard Owen: A History of British Mammals and Birds. Harvard College Library, Harvard, 1846, pp. 1-560 (pp. 179-183) ( [2] ).
