IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Dye, L. | |
| Prehistoric Pride - Tar Pits Suggest Altruism Among Saber-Toothed Tigers | |
| 1990 Newspaper | |
Few creatures that roamed what is now Southern California thousands of years ago, were a match for the fierce saber-toothed tiger, a predator that dined regularly on animals many times its size. With long, saber-shaped teeth protruding from its upper jaw, the magnificent beast carved its living out of what was then a pine-covered rain forest, long before the Los Angeles Basin became the arid land that it is today. But when its hunting days were over, and a crippled or aging cat could no longer attack the elephants or great bisons that wandered through its kingdom, scientists believed that it became an outcast, deprived of the sustenance it needed to maintain life. But new evidence suggests that these great beasts, extinct for around 10,000 years, lived a far more structured - and altruistic - life than had been thought. Wounded cats apparently were allowed to dine on the victims on other members of the pride, and even protected from other predators who would seek them out in their time of weakness. |
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