#saberteeth

Recently had an art collab with Ferevran!

Final for Thylacosmilus atrox. In the 1920s Captain Marshall Field funded two expeditions to South America which were undertaken by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois; these expeditions were launched under the hopes of finding fossils of mammals and other animals from the Cenozoic Era. In 1926, during the second expedition, a team was searching the Ituzaingo Formation in northern Argentina when they came across the remains of three animals thought to be never before discovered species of ancient marsupial. 

South America was prime real estate when it came to new discoveries due to it having been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world since the beginning of the Cenozoic and so expectations were high when it came to finding some uniquely adapted mammal specimens, it wasn't until 1933 when paleontologist Elmer S. Riggs named and described the specimens found on the Marshall Field Expeditions that science would realize just how right they were about the mammals of that time and place.

Thylacosmilus (meaning: "Pouched Knife"), was a member of member of a group called Sparassodonta, once thought to be true marsupials it is now considered to be a closely related group. Despite their resemblance to later placental predators like Smilodon fatalis, they were not closely related to them at all. Their saber teeth are an example of convergient evolution, where different, unrelated species develop similar traits to fill similar niches. Unlike felids, it's teeth grew backwards into their skull the older they got, they also did not possess retractable claws like most cats. Due to their short legs it's likely T. atrox were ambush hunters.

CS_Poojawa01