A Sabre Tooth Tiger Cub Is Discovered In Siberia

Share this story Discoveries Purrrrmafrosted Prize Saber-tooth cats are among the most renowned of prehistoric predators, often depicted with massive fangs and muscular builds. Now, the new discovery of a mummified saber-toothed kitten in Siberia has provided an exceptional first look at what the ancient predator truly looked like. The discovery, detailed in a recent study in Scientific Reports, marks the first time modern humans have seen a saber-tooth cat kitten, belonging to the species Homotheridum latidens, which lived in Eurasia until they went extinct at the end of the ice age around 10,000 years ago. “It’s a fantastic feeling to see with your own eyes the life appearance of a long-extinct animal,” paleontologist Alexey Lopatin, lead author of the study, told CNN. “Especially when it comes to such an interesting predator as the saber-toothed cat.” The kitten, who is estimated to have died at three weeks, was originally found in 2020, when researchers were hunting mammoth tusks in Eastern Siberia and stumbled across fur sticking out of the ground, wrote Live Science. Afterward, researchers at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow examined the 37,000-year-old mummy, which was covered in mummified flesh and fur, with the face, forelimbs, and torso all nearly intact. The kitten’s fur was dark brown and very thick, measuring about 0.8 to 1.2 inches long. The mummy still had its whiskers. Using CT scans to get a deeper look at the bones, Lopatin and the team identified the permafrosted cub as a Homotherium, the last species of saber-toothed cats, a distant relative of modern big cats such as tigers. The species is known for its long canines measuring up to eight inches long. Paleontologist Jack Tseng, an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, was “at a loss for words” at the discovery and the wealth of knowledge it can provide scientists. “It’s rare to find bones of this lineage in the first place, let alone soft tissue associated with it,” Tseng told CNN. “I don’t know if other paleontologists’ minds are as blown as mine, but it’s like reality changes now that we’ve seen this.” Unlike modern cubs, the kitten exhibited longer forelimbs, a larger neck, smaller ears, and a darker coat. The upper lip was also designed to cover its long canines that would grow, more than twice the size of those of modern lion’s cubs, according to Lopatin. The larger size of the cub’s paw, more like a modern bear, seems to suggest that the cats relied more on their forearms, for example, to immobilize their kills. Not only is the cub the first example of the Homotherium genus, validating previous 3D models based on fossils, but researchers say it gives them a valuable glimpse into the evolutionary history of the feline group. Share this story