Description

Species – Saber-toothed cat ( Megantereon) Age Late Miocene – Middle Pleistocene Period.
Megantereon was a genus of prehistoric machairodontine saber-toothed cat that lived in North America, Eurasia, and Africa. It is closely related to and possibly the ancestor of Smilodon.
Fossil fragments have been found in Africa, Eurasia and North America. The animal also ranged into southernmost China, as a mostly complete skull from Sabretooth Cave in Chongzuo indicates, though it seemed to have been rare in most of Asia because it was ill-adapted to closed forest environments.[2] The oldest confirmed samples of Megantereon are known from the Pliocene of North America and are dated to about 4.5 million years. Samples from Africa are dated to about 3–3.5 million years (for example, in Kenya, samples from Asia to about 2.5 to 2 million years. In Europe, the oldest remains are known from Les Etouaries (France), a site which is now dated to 2.78 million years ago. A North American origin of Megantereon has therefore been suggested. However, recent fragmentary fossils found in Kenya and Chad, which date to about 5.7 and 7 million years, are probably from Megantereon. If these identifications are correct, they would represent the oldest Megantereon fossils in the world. The new findings therefore indicate an origin of Megantereon in the Late Miocene of Africa