![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordsmilodon (SMAI-luh-don) - n., any of three extinct sabre-toothed cats (genus Smilodon) of North and South America.
The most famous of the sabre-toothed cats, the ones with the longest canines. Also Pleistocene folks, and like our previous two beasties, went extinct around 10,000 years ago -- though in their case, probably because their prey went extinct, rather than directly for the same (still heavily debated) cause. The three species are S. fatalis, S. gracilis, and S. populator, where that middle gracile one is purely relative -- it was still more stocky than even a modern jaguar. It has no particularly close modern relative, however -- all members of its subfamily of Felidae are gone. The name is coined from Greek roots smilē, carving knife + odon, tooth. I still like it for the apparent smile in its name, looking at its prey.
---L.
The most famous of the sabre-toothed cats, the ones with the longest canines. Also Pleistocene folks, and like our previous two beasties, went extinct around 10,000 years ago -- though in their case, probably because their prey went extinct, rather than directly for the same (still heavily debated) cause. The three species are S. fatalis, S. gracilis, and S. populator, where that middle gracile one is purely relative -- it was still more stocky than even a modern jaguar. It has no particularly close modern relative, however -- all members of its subfamily of Felidae are gone. The name is coined from Greek roots smilē, carving knife + odon, tooth. I still like it for the apparent smile in its name, looking at its prey.
---L.
