# They’ve found a 35,000 year old saber tooth tiger kitten **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 18, 2024, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777 "2024-12-18T06:04:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/21 "2024-12-18T21:31:01Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Nimvaride pictured below. Close enough for me – I’ll call that a saber-toothed tiger! > [@dolphinboy](#): > > The article mentions that it’s a _Homotherium latidens_. Homotherium latidens wasn’t quite as nuts in the tooth department as Smilodon. It looks like [they may have not shown visible sabers when their mouths were closed](https://novataxa.blogspot.com/2022/04/homotherium.html). Still pretty cool, though. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2024, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/22 "2024-12-18T21:38:53Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > That this was found in Siberia is really big news. Smilodons and such were previously only known from the Americas. Yeah, the George Page Museum in Los Angeles has tons of saber tooth cat skulls that were found in the local tar pits. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2024, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/23 "2024-12-18T22:30:58Z")
Even if the DNA is fully intact, I doubt we even could clone them. I don’t know if there’s any extant species closely enough related to be able to serve as a host-mother. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2024, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/24 "2024-12-18T22:45:45Z")
So, we’d have to clone an extant in-between species first, and _then_ clone the saber-tooth cat… ha ha 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2024, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/25 "2024-12-18T23:05:01Z")
I guess I didn’t probe enough on the saber-tooth cat stuff. So, Eurasia for animals of this type was known. ---
**Author:** ![jharvey963](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/54ee81/32.png) [@jharvey963](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jharvey963)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/26 "2024-12-22T05:36:53Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > Wow - I had no idea **saber-tooth tigers** were around _that_ long ago. [Pedantic-mode-on] From my visit to the La Brea Tar Pits years ago, I learned that _there is no such thing as a saber-toothed tiger_. The animal in question is a **saber-toothed cat**. They are not related to tigers at all. Saber-toothed cat is the correct name. [Pedantic-mode-off] ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/27 "2024-12-22T05:51:50Z")
> [@jharvey963](#): > > The animal in question is a **saber-toothed cat**. Well, if we’re going there we might as well square the pedantry. While the overall grouping are known as the sabre-toothed cats, the sub-group Homotherium latidens belongs to is usually separated out as the [scimitar-toothed cats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotherini), with their slightly smaller, serrated canines. By contrast the Smilodon lineages are often referred to as the [dirk-toothed cats](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smilodontini) with their longer, dagger-like canines. Because if it is one things humans like doing it is classifying things into endless nested hierarchies 🙂. This becomes handy in the inevitable thread of Smilodon fatalis vs Homotherium latidens - who wins in a fight? ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/28 "2024-12-22T06:14:41Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Let’s not reanimate creatures that nature deemed biologically obsolete long ago just to put it in a cage and gawk at it. Tu Pac’s new album drops Christmas Eve ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 8:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/29 "2024-12-22T08:24:19Z")
I want to see a katana-toothed cat. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2024, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/30 "2024-12-22T18:32:08Z")
> [@jharvey963](#): > > The animal in question is a **saber-toothed cat**. They are not related to tigers at all. The entire group of sabertooths are apparently only distantly related to any modern cats at all. They’re just very cat-shaped predators. Admittedly, sufficiently cat-shaped that when I see a picture of one my brain goes “cat!” ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2024, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/31 "2024-12-23T05:36:25Z")
> [@jharvey963](#): > > They are not related to tigers at all. The internet basically concurs: “ The last common ancestor of a saber-tooth cat (like Smilodon) and a tiger is an ancient feline species that lived roughly 20 million years ago, which is considered to be a very early divergence point from the lineage leading to modern cats, placing the saber-toothed cat in a separate subfamily called Machairodontinae, distinct from the subfamily containing tigers (Pantherinae).” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2024, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/32 "2024-12-23T17:19:49Z")
Or put another way, modern tigers are equally closely related to sabretooths as any other modern cat is. And sabretooths, like cheetahs, aren’t even true cats at all, as their claws aren’t retractable. They’re closer to cats than they are to, say, dogs, but there’s still a big difference. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2024, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/33 "2024-12-23T17:40:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And sabretooths, like cheetahs, aren’t even true cats at all, as their claws aren’t retractable. Cheetahs are true cats, they’ve just secondarily lost the ability to retract their claws as an adaptation to cursorial hunting. They are now considered a [sister group to the New World pumas and jaguarundis](https://www.wildcatfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/1-Felidae-lineage-and-genus-chart-shape-mindmap.jpg) (they are in Acinonyx, the jaguarundi is Herpailurus on that chart). Similarly the sabre-toothed cats are absolutely cats in the family Felidae as currently defined, just an extinct branch. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/34 "2024-12-24T17:23:59Z")
50,000 year old baby mammoth has been found in the same general area as the tiger cub. > **[Photos show well-preserved remains of 50,000-year-old baby mammoth found in...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/photos-baby-mammoth-preserved-remains-siberia-russia/)** > > Yana is estimated to have been only about one year old when she died. She weighs more than 397 pounds and measures about 4 feet and 200 centimeters long. I wonder if there is anything else to be found. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/35 "2024-12-24T21:21:08Z")
> [@Skywatcher](#): > > I wonder if there is anything else to be found That’s immediately what came to my mind. If there are two cases of such amazing preservation in there, maybe there are more? I expect there will be people looking. – the article says that one reason frozen soft parts aren’t often found is that as soon as they thaw out something comes along and eats them. Which seems to imply that there very likely is a good deal more to be found, if the researchers can just get ahead of the scavengers. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/36 "2024-12-24T22:21:36Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Let’s not reanimate creatures that nature deemed biologically obsolete long ago just to put it in a cage and gawk at it. > [@Lucas\_Jackson](#): > > No one said anything about putting it in a cage. The universe unfolds, ‘nature’ isn’t a sentient entity that deems these things, as such. ‘Nature’ was was quite happy to provide a niche for dinosaurs for 165 million years until a random asteroid took them out. And, without that, might have gone another 165. Or was that nature’s will? Using that logic, if we bring one back, isn’t that also nature’s will? I don’t want to put it in a cage and gawk at it. I want to run a dude ranch and hunting lodge. Within the boundaries of the ranch, metal, plastic, and gunpowder will be forbidden. If you want to dine on mammoth steak, like your ancestors did, you have to kill it with a flint-tipped spear, like your ancestors did. And you have to fight off the saber-toothed cats, like your ancestors did. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/37 "2024-12-24T22:28:02Z")
Even better if you’re dumped in naked and have to make the spear yourself (after you’ve found the materials). Cold? Better hope the mammoth has a nice thick skin. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/38 "2024-12-24T22:35:50Z")
I wouldn’t go that far. Humans have never been solitary predators. We have always been pack hunters. A stone-age hunter would venture into the field wearing clothes sewn by the tribal tailor, and carrying weapons made by the tribal flint-knapper. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/39 "2024-12-24T23:06:15Z")
Even if you had to make all of your own gear, you would make sure your kit was assembled before you began the hunt. You hunt small game for survival. Megafauna required planning and preparation. (And besides: my dude ranch will offer classes in leather-working, bone-carving, flint-knapping, and foraging for the vegetables and herbs to accompany the mammoth steak.) 😀 ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2024, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777/40 "2024-12-24T23:07:39Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > Humans have never been solitary predators. I doubt this is true. Pack hunters wrt larger game animals. But I’m sure early humans did quite well with solitary hunts for birds, rabbits, squirrels, sloths, etc. ETA: ^ posted while I was typing > [@mbh](#): > > You hunt small game for survival. Pretty sure all hunting was for survival early on. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/they-ve-found-a-35-000-year-old-saber-tooth-tiger-kitten/1011777.md?page=3)