Calling all “Ice Age” fanatics: The frozen stays of a 35,000-year-old saber-toothed cat were studied for the primary time in historical past, in line with a find out about revealed Thursday within the magazine Medical Stories.The animal’s mummified stays, which come with its head, hands and a part of its chest, have been discovered well-preserved in Yakutia, Russia, in 2020 and decided to belong to a cub round 3 weeks outdated, according to the find out about.The younger cub’s maximum notable traits are its small ears, lengthy neck and entrance hands, darkish brown fur, and big mouth opening, the find out about authors wrote. Compared with the stays of a contemporary lion cub of a identical age, it was once decided that the cat mummy shared traits with the subfamily Machairodontinae, particularly the Homotherium genus — cats with sharp, curved saber enamel that existed round 12 million to ten,000 years in the past in North The united states and Europe.
A. displays the frozen mummy and B. displays Panthera leo (Linnaeus, 1758), a contemporary lion cub’s stays.Lopatin, A.V., Sotnikova, M.V., Klimovsky, A.I. et al.When compared with the trendy lion cub’s stays, the Homotherium cat’s ears are up upper at the cranium, and its mouth opening is set 11% to 19% higher, in line with the find out about. Its neck could also be “longer and greater than two times as thick” as the trendy cub’s.For “Ice Age” film franchise enthusiasts, the outline of the saber-toothed cat would possibly sound acquainted. The nature Diego, a saber-toothed tiger, has very identical characteristics to the 35,000-year-old cub. This marks the primary time stays of this sort were studied.“For the primary time within the historical past of paleontology, the illusion of an extinct mammal that has no analogues within the trendy fauna has been studied,” the find out about authors wrote.The find out about’s corresponding creator didn’t in an instant reply to a request for remark.
