Fossils tucked away in a museum drawer and identified merely as "feline" are actually from a very ancient and enigmatic saber-toothed cat that inhabited North America more than 5 million years ago.

The fearsome teeth of the saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis fully emerged at a later age than those of modern big cats, but grew at a rate about double that of their living relatives. The findings, ...

Whether waking up to a slobber-soaked ribbon draped across one's face or an unfortunately massacred mouse 'gifted' in one's slippers, anyone intimate with a cat can attest that their tiny tiger is ...

A reconstruction of Smilodon, photographed at the American Museum of Natural History. When it comes to animals, encyclopedias often present us with generalized descriptions. Where a creature lives, ...

Contributors -- Preface -- 1. Smilodon : a short history of becoming the iconic sabertooth / H. Gregory McDonald -- 2. The phylogenetic context of Smilodon / Lars Werdelin and Therese Flink -- 3.

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. The Ice Age’s most famous predator, Smilodon, killed with ...

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Ice Age mammals loom large in our imagination ...

You can't spell 'Smilodon fatalis' without 'fatal', but researchers at La Brea Tar Pits may have found a softer side to saber-toothed cats along with a connection to our own feline and canine ...

On a superficial level, the predatory habits of the saber-toothed cat Smilodon would not seem to be especially mysterious. Traditionally - and incorrectly - restored as a lion with extra-long upper ...

New research shows that the fearsome teeth of the saber-toothed cat Smilodon fatalis fully emerged at a later age than those of modern big cats, but grew at a rate about double that of their living ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Illustration depicting Smilodon fatalis. (Corey Ford/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images) Whether waking up to a slobber-soaked ribbon ...