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| Subject: | | Sabertooths were pussycats according to new analysis |
| From: | |
kittenz
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posted
Fri, Nov 6 2009, 9:32pm
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New research based on dental analysis indicates that there may have been much less sexual dimorphism in the sabertooth cat Smilodon fatalis than in Panthera cats. especially lions. The research indicates that males and females of S. fatalis were virtually the same size.
The theory is that in cats such as lions, the males can be nearly twice the size of females, because the males are aggressive and have to fight for territory and females. Since males and female sabertooths were about the same size, they go on to say, the sabertooth males must not have been aggressive animals.
Does anyone else see a sort of circular thinking here? I don't think that a possible lack of intraspecies aggression is necessarily an indication that the animal in question was a passive creature. For that matter, I don't really see that a lack of sexual dimorphism in a species is necessarily indicative of a lack of intraspecies aggression. You don't carry all that ivory on display and not use it. Perhaps the presumption is true and sabertooths were not aggressive with one another. Maybe they did not need to be that aggressive with others of their own kind; maybe they used facial markings, along with behaviors and that spectacular dentition, to communicate and avoid fighting. That certainly does not mean that they were pushovers. |
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