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Museum guideCode 204

The sabre-toothed cat

One of the great predators that shared the landscape of the ancient lake with the first humans.

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Two sabre-toothed cats have been identified at Venta Micena: Megantereon whitei, with 52 remains and at least three individuals in the main quarry, and Homotherium latidens, with 15 remains and at least two individuals.

They were not tigers: they belonged to the machairodontines, a subfamily of cats that is now extinct. Their prey also fed other carnivores: at Venta Micena 3 the accumulation of bones has been interpreted as the den of the giant hyena, which scavenged animals hunted by the sabre-tooths and by the African-type hunting dog Lycaon.

In the image, the reproduction of a sabre-toothed cat skeleton in one of the museum rooms.

Source: Palmqvist, P. et al. (2022), Scientific Reports 12: 705.