Two new species of saber-tooth tiger from 5 million years ago discovered in South Africa

July 21 () –

By examining one of the Pliocene fossil collections at Langebaanweg, north of Cape Town (South Africa), an international investigation led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has discovered two new species of saber-toothed tigers, as reported by the University’s Scientific Culture Unit.

Results of the study, published in iScience, have suggested that the distribution of ancient African sabertooths might have been different than previously assumed.

The University has explained that Saber-toothed tigers are a diverse group of predators with hyperdeveloped upper canines that began roaming Africa around 7-6 million years ago, around the time hominids, the group that includes modern humans, began to evolve.

Thus, this work has described a total of four species. Two of them, ‘Dinofelis werdelini’ and ‘Lokotunjailurus chimsamyae’were previously unknown.

The investigation has also detailed that the ‘Dinofelis’ is distributed globally and its fossils have been found in Africa, China, Europe and North America.. The researchers hoped to identify a new species of ‘Dinofelis’ on the Langebaanweg based on previous research. However, ‘Lokotunjailurus’ had only been identified in Kenya and Chad prior to this analysis.. This suggests that it was present practically throughout the continent between 7 and 5 million years ago (late Late Miocene and early Pliocene).

“Our phylogenetic analysis is the first to take into account all four species from the Langebaanweg. The known material from saber-toothed tigers in this region was relatively poor, and the importance of these saber-toothed tigers has not been adequately recognized.“, has commented the researcher of the Faculty of Geological Sciences of the UCM and main author of the work, Alberto Valenciano.

To build a family tree, researchers have classified the physical traits of each saber-tooth species, such as the presence or absence of teeth, their structure, and the shape of the jaw and skull. With this information encoded in a matrix, and through state-of-the-art phylogenetic analyses, they have determined the degree of kinship with other previously described fossil forms and other current felids.

The study has further indicated that the composition of the Langebaanweg felid assemblage, including saber-tooth tigers and cats such as Machairodontini, Metailurini and Felinae, has reflected rising global temperatures and environmental changes of the Pliocene epoch.

Thus, the presence of certain Machairodontini (Lokotunjailurus), which are larger and relatively more adapted to running, has suggested that there were open grassland environments on the Langebaanweg. However, the presence of the Metalaurini (Dinofelis) has suggested that there were also more covered environments, such as forests.

Researchers have highlighted that finding both species has hinted that the Langebaanweg contained a mix of forest and grassland 5.2 million years agobut the high proportion of Machairodonti species compared to other Eurasian and African fossil localities confirm that southern Africa was in transition to more open grassland-like areas during this period.

Another of the conclusions that stands out from the research is that the composition of saber teeth in this area is very similar to that found in Yuanmou, China. In fact, the Yuanmou saber-toothed tiger ‘Longchuansmilus’ may have a close evolutionary relationship with the African species of ‘Lokotunjailurus’.

“This suggests that the environment of the two regions during the Mio-Pliocene was similar or that there was a possible migration route between the Langebaanweg and Yuanmou.“, explained Qigao Jiangzuo, a paleontologist at Peking University.

“The two new sabertooths are just one example of the many previously unpublished fossils from Langebaanweg housed at Iziko in the Cenozoic Collections,” said Romala Govender, curator and paleontologist at the Iziko Museum in South Africa.