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Thylacosmilus
 
 
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Thylacosmilus ("pouch sabre") was a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of sabre-toothed marsupial
Marsupial

Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by a distinctive Pouch , in which females carry their young through early infancy....
 predators that first appeared during the Miocene
Miocene

The Miocene is a Geologic time scale of the Neogene period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.33 million years before the present. As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are uncertain....
. Remains of the animal have been found in parts of South America
South America

South America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere....
, primarily Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
. It was not a relative of the true saber-tooth cat, but rather a prime example of convergent evolution
Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action....
.

hylacosmilus had long, sabre-like upper canines and short, blunt, peg-like lower canines. The incisors were missing altogether and the other teeth were severely reduced, but, as distinct from machairod
Machairodontinae

The Machairodontinae form a subfamily of the Felidae . It contains some of the extinct cats commonly known as "saber-toothed cats", including the famed genus Smilodon as well as other cats with only minor increases in the size and length of their maxillary canines....
s, their number was complete.






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Encyclopedia


Thylacosmilus ("pouch sabre") was a genus
Genus

A genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the classification of living and fossil organisms. The taxonomic ranks are domain , kingdom , phylum, class , order , family , genus, and species....
 of sabre-toothed marsupial
Marsupial

Marsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by a distinctive Pouch , in which females carry their young through early infancy....
 predators that first appeared during the Miocene
Miocene

The Miocene is a Geologic time scale of the Neogene period and extends from about 23.03 to 5.33 million years before the present. As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the start and end are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are uncertain....
. Remains of the animal have been found in parts of South America
South America

South America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere....
, primarily Argentina
Argentina

Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic , is a country in South America, constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city....
. It was not a relative of the true saber-tooth cat, but rather a prime example of convergent evolution
Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action....
.

Description

Thylacosmilus had long, sabre-like upper canines and short, blunt, peg-like lower canines. The incisors were missing altogether and the other teeth were severely reduced, but, as distinct from machairod
Machairodontinae

The Machairodontinae form a subfamily of the Felidae . It contains some of the extinct cats commonly known as "saber-toothed cats", including the famed genus Smilodon as well as other cats with only minor increases in the size and length of their maxillary canines....
s, their number was complete.

Thylacosmilus sabre-teeth kept growing throughout its life, unlike the sabres of true saber-tooths. It also had a pair of elongated, scabbard
Scabbard

A scabbard is a sheath for holding a sword or other large blade.Scabbards have been made of many materials over the millennia, including leather, wood, and metals such as brass or steel....
-like flanges growing from the lower jaw, which protected the sabre-teeth when it closed its mouth. The cervical vertebrae were very strong and to some extent resembled the vertebrae of machairods.

It became extinct during the early Pleistocene
Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
 as a result of the Great American Interchange
Great American Interchange

The Great American Interchange was an important zoogeography event in which land and freshwater fauna migrated from North America via Central America to South America and vice versa, as the volcanic Isthmus of Panama rose up from the sea floor and bridged the formerly separated continents....
, being outcompeted by true sabre-tooth cats such as Smilodon
Smilodon

Smilodon , sometimes called sabre-toothed cat, is an extinction genus of large Machairodontinae saber-toothed cats that lived between approximately 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago in North America and South America....
.

In Popular Culture


In the Primeval spin-off book "Shadow of the Jaguar", the main antagonists are a pack of Thylacosmilus that are being controlled from an unknown bird from the future that looks like an Incan God. The Thylacosmilus in this book are described as being black panther-like.

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