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martyb [soylentnews.org] writes:

Many different creatures have roamed the Earth over the years, and scientists now have a better idea of when saber-tooth cats were around... quite possibly at the same time as humans:

Researchers who've analyzed the complete mitochondrial genomes from ancient samples representing two species of saber-toothed cats have a new take on the animals' history over the last 50,000 years. The data suggest that the saber-toothed cats shared a common ancestor with all living cat-like species about 20 million years ago. The two saber-toothed cat species under study diverged from each other about 18 million years ago.

"It's quite crazy that, in terms of their mitochondrial DNA, these two saber-toothed cats are more distant from each other than tigers are from house cats," says Johanna Paijmans at the University of Potsdam in Germany.

Paijmans and colleagues reconstructed the mitochondrial genomes from ancient-DNA samples representing three Homotherium from Europe and North America and one Smilodon specimen from South America. One of the Homotherium specimens under investigation is a unique fossil: a 28,000-year-old mandible recovered from the North Sea.

"When the first anatomically modern humans migrated to Europe, there may have been a saber-toothed cat waiting for them," Paijmans says.

Why do I have a sudden urge to sing the theme song to The Flintstones [youtube.com]?

Journal Reference: Johanna L.A. Paijmans, et al. Evolutionary History of Saber-Toothed Cats Based on Ancient Mitogenomics. Current Biology, 2017; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.033 [doi.org]

Original Submission