Wednesday 2 December 2015

A cat with enormous, long and curve teeth

If you had to choose between an ancient sabre-toothed tiger and a modern tiger, which one would you choose?

In “ Did our ancient ancestors ‘killthe cat’?”, BBC News (2015), Hellen Briggs tells us that the 300,000-year-old fossils of a sabre-toothed cat were found in Schöningen, north-central Germany, where early humans Homo Heidelbergensis also resided, indicating that Schöningen families may have to defend themselves from these giant cats with spears.

This article makes me think of my favorite cartoon animation Ice Age, in which one of the protagonists is a sabre-toothed tiger, who is a good friend of a sloth and a mammoth. This cartoon features a sabre-toothed tiger as a kind, funny guy which is, I think, the opposite of what real giant tigers were 300,000 years ago. Their enormous, long and curve teeth which were for ripping fresh meat could portray their vicious features.  


I have to admit that I did not know much about the history of a sabre-toothed tiger. But when I started to read this article, I decided that I had to do a little bit of research about this cat and our ancient cousins Homo Heidelbergensis who were the first of early humans to start to use wooden spears. I have to thank this article for helping me to educate myself. 

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Reference
Briggs H., (2015, December 2). Did our ancient ancestors ‘kill the cat’?. BBC News. Retrieved from

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34944560
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1 comment:

  1. Peter AUA5 December 2015 at 19:00

    I'm glad the article you read prompted you to do a bit more research: that's exactly what we want.

    I liked the Ice Age films - fun entertainment to relax with after hard day reading or reviewing or revising.

    I suspect our ancestors ate anything they could get their hands on and overpower - but catching giant cats is impressive, although I'm reminded of the pretty awful film 10,000 BC, which did at least show how our remote ancestors might well have done such things as capture giant cats, mammoths and other tasty animals for the dinner barbecue - I'm assuming they didn't have pots and pans, but I haven't done the research, so I really don't know: my assumption might well be false. They certainly didn't have iron at that remote time, but perhaps clay pots were already in use for cooking.

    I couldn't resist: a quick Google of the search string "earliest cooking pots" led me to "Oldest pottery hints at cooking’s ice-age origins" (New Scientist, 2012), which suggests that our ancestors were cooking up stews and things at least 20,000 years ago in the ice age.

    I would certainly appreciate a nice hot stew in that chilly environment.

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