2023-07-21 18:44:38
Updated Friday, July 21, 2023 – 18:44
Research suggests that both species were present between 7 and 5 million years ago.
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A international research led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) has discovered two new species of saber-tooth tiger by examining one of the Pliocene fossil collections at Langebaanweg, north of Cape Town, South Africa, the university’s Scientific Culture Unit has reported.
The results of the study, published in ‘iScience’, have suggested that the distribution of saber-toothed ancient Africa may have been different from what was previously assumed.
The University has explained that saber-toothed tigers constitute a diverse group of predators with hyperdeveloped upper canines that began to roam Africa about 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.
Research has further detailed that he ‘Dinofelis werdellini‘ 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 chimsamyae’ 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 the four species of Langebaanweg. The known material of saber-toothed tigers in this region was relatively poor, and the importance of these saber-toothed tigers has not been duly recognised”, commented Alberto Valenciano, a researcher from the UCM Faculty of Geological Sciences and lead author of the study.
To build a family tree, researchers have classified the physical traits of each species of saber-tooth, 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 fluids.
The study has further indicated that the composition of the Langebaanweg fluid assemblage, including saber-toothed tigers and felines such as Machairodontini, Metailurini and Felinae, has reflected rising global temperatures and the environmental changes of the Pliocene epoch.
Thus, the presence of certain Machairodontini (Lokotunjailurus), which are larger in size 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.
The researchers have highlighted that the fact of having found both species has insinuated that Langebaanweg contained a mixture 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 Was there a possible migration route? entre Langebaanweg y Yuanmou”, ha explicado el paleontlogo de la Universidad de Pekn Qigao Jiangzuo.
“The two new sabertooths are just one example of the many previously unseen Langebaanweg fossils housed at Iziko in the Cenozoic Collections,” concluded Romala Govender, curator and paleontologist at the Iziko Museum of South Africa.
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