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Thylacosmilus
''Thylacosmilus atrox'' is an extinct species of saber-toothed metatherian that inhabited South America from the late Miocene to late Pliocene epochs. Remains of this animal have been found primarily in the provinces of Catamarca, Entre Ríos, and La Pampa in northern Argentina. Though ''Thylacosmilus'' is one of several predatory mammal genera typically called "sabre-toothed cats", it was not a felid but a sparassodont, a group closely related to marsupials, and only superficially resembled other sabre-toothed mammals due to convergent evolution.
==Description==
The most notable features of ''Thylacosmilus'' that can be identified were its canines, which were saber-like and whose roots grew throughout the animal’s life, growing in an arc up the maxilla and even above the orbits. Its cervical vertebrae were very strong and to some extent resembled the vertebrae of machairodonts.〔Benes, Josef. Prehistoric Animals and Plants. Prague, Artua, 1979. Pg. 237-8〕 Recent comparative biomechanical analysis have estimated the bite force of ''T. atrox'' starting at maximum gape at , much weaker than that of a leopard, suggesting its jaw muscles had an insignificant role on the dispatch of prey. Its skull was similar to that of ''Smilodon'' in that it was much better adapted to withstand loads applied by the neck musculature, which, along with evidence for powerful and flexible forelimb musculature and other skeleton adaptations for stability, support the hypothesis that its killing method consisted on immobilization of its prey followed by precisely directed, deep bites into the soft tissue driven by powerful neck muscles.
Body mass estimates of ''Thylacosmilus'' suggest this animal weighed between 80 and 120 kg (170 and 260 lb), about the same size as a modern jaguar.〔 This would make it one of the largest known carnivorous metatherians.
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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