Freitag, 26. Juni 2015

Homotherium ?

Dear Fiends
thanks to our Gianni; to his palaeontological collection and MS-01, it is possible to continue the excursions in the paleo-epochs. This time, a tooth address to a meeting with a possible Homotherium https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Homotherium somewhere in the actual Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela , at some point in time between 5 mya and 10 kya ago. But let Gianni to express his opinion about the identification of this respected, ferocious guest:

"1)        I exclude Panthera atrox (American lion)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_lion due to the presence of a vestigial heel (talonid) on the posterior edge. The cusps are also much lower than in Panthera;
2)        I  would also exclude Smilodon https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Smilodon and Machairodus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machairodus , in which the posterior cusp (protoconid) is much more developed and bent backwards than the anterior one (paraconid).

In my view, the combination of features of this tooth, i.e. the presence of a small talonid, the sub-equal length and height of the cusps and the presence of serrations support the identification of the specimen as a Homotherine (this group were the only saber-tooths with serrations on all teeth, at least in the young adult individuals like this one)".

Any comment from your side is welcome.
Salutations
Giancarlo


 










 

Keine Kommentare:

Kommentar veröffentlichen