Saber-toothed cat

What it is

Smilodon fatalis was a robust saber-toothed cat of Pleistocene North America, famous from the Rancho La Brea tar pits. It is extinct. It is not a tiger. A larger South American species, S. populator, died out in the same window.

Range

Western and southern North America in the Late Pleistocene. Close relatives occupied South America.

What happened

The last Smilodon date to about 13,000-10,000 years ago, with other large American mammals. People reached the Americas in the same broad interval (~15,000-10,000 years ago). Hunting of prey, possible hunting of the cats, and climate-driven change in grassland and megafauna communities are all cited. The pattern is first-contact loss of large-mammal genera: not “90 percent of all animals.”

When / status

Extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, about 13,000-10,000 years ago.

Human role

Widely cited as a contributing cause on a newly peopled continent, together with climate and prey collapse: not a proven sole cause.

Sources

Rancho La Brea chronology; reviews of North American end-Pleistocene megafauna extinction (e.g. Barnosky, Koch).