Sabertooth

Book excerpt: “A unique review of the many unusual and nearly worldwide occurrences of sabertooths and their relatives over more than 50 million years.” —Choice With their spectacularly enlarged canines, sabertooth cats are among the most popular of prehistoric animals, yet it is surprising how little information about them is available for the curious layperson. What’s more, there were other sabertooths that were not cats, animals with exotic names like nimravids, barbourofelids, and thylacosmilids. Some were no taller than a domestic cat, others were larger than a lion, and some were as weird as their names suggest. Sabertooths continue to pose questions even for specialists. What did they look like? How did they use their spectacular canine teeth? And why did they finally go extinct? In this visual and intellectual treat of a book, Mauricio Antón tells their story in words and pictures, all scrupulously based on the latest scientific research. The book is a glorious wedding of science and art that celebrates the remarkable diversity of the life of the not-so-distant past. “The best paleomammal artist working today [and] his knowledge of sabertooths and their evolution is second to none.” —Lars Werdelin, Swedish Museum of Natural History “Mauricio Antón is one of the best paleoartists. What sets him apart is the fact that he is a great paleontologist in his own right. Probably no one else has thought more about sabertooth than he has. As a result, his illustrations often demonstrate a particular behavior of the extinct mammal that he has personally researched or display a unique point of view.” —Xiaoming Wang, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles