3 MYA - 9,000 Years Ago
SPECIES:
Megantereon cultridens,
Megantereon nihowanensis
FRANCE
The Museum of Natural history in Paris: skulls
SWITZERLAND
The Natural History museum in Basel: mounted skeleton
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Megantereon is another genus that is not well represented. Examples have been found in Africa, Eurasia, and North America. All have been fragmentary, except one full skeleton found in France. It is from this that a vague description can be made. This description, however, may not be entirely accurate since it relies heavily on a single individual. |
From the full skeleton, Megantereon appears to have been built much like a modern jaguar. It was about the size of a leopard with stocky forelimbs, the lower half of these forelimbs were about the size of a lion. Megantereon also had a thick stocky neck like that of a jaguar. It is not know how this cat killed, since it's teeth are shaped such that they would likely break if prey struggled.
Megantereon's long canines do suggest it would perhaps create a large fatal wound in it's prey. This still creates a problem in deciding how the prey was killed. For example, one possibility is that Megantereon waited for it's prey to black out from loss of blood. This is somewhat how a Komodo dragon kills, except the dragon waits for it's prey to die from the bacteria in it's bite. The problem arises in defending the weakened prey from other predators. With the Komodo dragon this is not an issue, since this lizard is the dominant predator on the islands where it lives. Megantereon however co-existed with such powerful predators or scavengers like hyenas and the larger Homotherium. A struggling animal would no doubt attract these competitors, and Megantereon would be forced to fight off others that would take it's prey. These types of situations make it difficult to form a good hypothesis, but there may still be more evidence yet to be found that sheds more light on this cat's behavior.
Sources: .The Big Cats and Their Fossil Relatives. Alan Turner. Columbia University Press, New York. 1997.
