Thylacosmilus | |
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Two reconstructed skeletons mounted in fighting pose, Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | †Sparassodonta |
Family: | †Thylacosmilidae |
Genus: | †Thylacosmilus Riggs 1933 |
Species: | †T. atrox
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Binomial name | |
†Thylacosmilus atrox Riggs 1933
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Synonyms | |
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Thylacosmilus is an extinct genus of saber-toothed metatherian mammals that inhabited South America from the Late Miocene to Pliocene epochs. Though Thylacosmilus looks similar to the "saber-toothed cats", it was not a felid, like the well-known North American Smilodon, but a sparassodont, a group closely related to marsupials, and only superficially resembled other saber-toothed mammals due to convergent evolution. A 2005 study found that the bite forces of Thylacosmilus and Smilodon were low, which indicates the killing-techniques of saber-toothed animals differed from those of extant species. Remains of Thylacosmilus have been found primarily in Catamarca, Entre Ríos, and La Pampa Provinces in northern Argentina.[1]