By Sid Perkins
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 CLEVELAND — Analyses of fossils reveal that a third, newly recognized type of saber-toothed cat — one that killed by biting large chunks of flesh from its victim instead of biting its neck and slashing the major blood vessels there — roamed the Americas about a million years ago.
All modern-day cats, from tabbies to tigers, have cone-shaped incisors and canine teeth at the front of their jaws, and most of these felines are relatively lithe. But the extinct saber-toothed cats were a different breed altogether.
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Previously, scientists split those cats into two morphotypes, or combinations of body type and tooth shape, says Virginia Naples, a vertebrate paleontologist at NorthernIllinoisUniversity in DeKalb. One group, the dirk-toothed cats, had stout bodies, short legs, and long, narrow, finely serrated canine teeth in their upper jaws. Felines in the other group, the scimitar-toothed cats, were slimmer than the dirk-toothed cats, had longer legs and had canine teeth that also were serrated but relatively shorter and broader than those of dirk-toothed cats.
At the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology on October 18, Naples and her colleagues proposed a new, third type of saber-toothed cat: A stoutly built feline whose full array of teeth — not just the canines — were serrated. Because analyses of fossils from one of these felines suggest that the teeth on its upper jaw meshed with those on its lower jaw to produce a clean, nearly continuous cut, the researchers suggest calling the new morphotype “cookie-cutter cats.”