Saber-toothed carnivores are widely recognized by many people as terrifying and fearsome Cenozoic predators with their massive deadly sharp fangs. One of the known saber-toothed carnivores is the Smilodon.
This ancient carnivore is related to modern cats and was examined by a team of researchers led by Narimane Chatar from the University of Liege in Belgium for biting efficiency. The team has just shown how these creatures managed to bite despite the amazing length of their teeth using high-precision 3D scans and simulation approaches.
How Did Smilodon Hunt?
Ancient carnivorous mammals evolved a wide range of skull and tooth morphologies during the course of their existence, SciTech Daily reported. Few, however, have been as spectacular as those of Smilodon, the legendary saber-toothed felid.
Other animal families, such as the extinct nimravids, acquired similar morphology, but with shorter canines, comparable to modern-day lions, tigers, caracals, domestic cats, and so on. It is called convergent evolution when similar morphologies appear in different groups of species.
There are no equivalent animals to those with saber teeth, so the hunting methods of Smilodon and similar species have remained a mystery and something that scientists have widely debated. Initially, researchers suggest that all saber-toothed carnivores hunted the same way regardless of the length of their saber teeth. But this theory is controversial and so the search continues.
Professor Valentin Fischer, head of the EDDyLab at ULiège, said that the massive canines of the extinct saber-toothed cat Smilodon suggest that this species had to extend its mouth very wide at about 110° according to some authors.
The mechanical feasibility and effectiveness of Smilodon and its relatives biting at such a great angle, on the other hand, is unknown, creating a vacuum in our understanding of this key subject regarding saber-toothed predators.
3D Techniques Help Uncover the Mystery of Smilodon's Bite
An international team of Belgian and North American experts has now discovered how Smilodon most likely deployed their remarkable weaponry using high-precision 3D scanners and engineering-derived analytical methodologies.
Chatar, the lead author of the study, and his team collected a large number of 3D data about Smilodon and then scanned and modeled the skulls, mandibles, and muscles of extinct species of nimravids. According to a similar report by Science Daily, researchers simulated a total of 1,074 bite scenarios of the animals biting and analyzed each tooth at three different biting angles: 30°, 60°, and 90°.
They used the finite element approach, wherein paleontologists modify and computationally simulate different bite angles on the skull models to see possible outcomes without damaging fossil specimens. Professor Jack Tseng from the University of California, Berkeley said that their comprehensive analyses provide detailed insight into the diversity of bite mechanics of saber-toothed animals.
One of their findings showed the distribution of stress or pressure on the mandible during biting. The stress levels vary between the animals studied, with the greatest levels observed in species with the shortest upper canines and the lowest levels measured in the most severe saber-toothed species.
They also discovered that increasing bite angle reduced stress, but only in saber-toothed species. However, the manner these species transferred force to the bite location and the mandibular deformation caused by the bite were very similar throughout the dataset, demonstrating equivalent efficiency regardless of canine length.
The team concludes that the results show both the possibilities and limits of evolution in which animals facing the same problems in their ecosystem end up looking alike through convergent evolution.
They discussed their study, titled "Many-to-one function of cat-like mandibles highlights a continuum of saber-tooth adaptations," in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
RELATED ARTICLE: New Saber-Tooth Species With Specialized Teeth For Tearing Off Flesh Discovered, Will Shed Light on the Evolution of Carnivorous Mammals
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