Re: Sabre toothed cat, was:Forelimbs of "Terror Birds"

["Larry Febo" <larryf@capital.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Marilyn <mdwegweiser@home.com>
To: dinosaur@usc.edu <dinosaur@usc.edu>
Date: Monday, December 10, 2001 6:09 PM
Subject: Re: Forelimbs of "Terror Birds" (WWB Mild-Rant Cont)



>>Art Sippo (ArtSippo@aol.com) wrote:

>>   And did anyone notice the homage to WWD -- part one -- with the
>>"scent-marking" *Smilodon* in
>>the South American episode? :)  Of all the animals, I think they
>>could have done those better,
>
>Oh! I agree wholeheartedly!- the cats. WHY didn't they manage to get
>them more realistic? Plenty of modern examples. T'would have almost
>been more fun if they had just merged a Saber Tooth head on to a
>lion's body and done the chase and kill routine off of what has to be
>hundreds of miles of video footage that must be in the documentary
>library somewhere.
>
> Marilyn D. Wegweiser, Ph.D.
> CMC Research Associate
>     Adjunct /Vertebrate Paleontology
>    Cincinnati Museum Center
>      Geier Collections and Research Center



I agree that most of the animations looked like slow moving puppets...One
could almost make a case for their being "cold-blooded" if their motions
were taken as wholly realistic. The producers should have made them all
computer animations, perhaps occasionally making some slow-motion kill shots
(that are obviously slow motion) for clarity.

At any rate, I realize that someone (Larry Martin?) has recently done
research to show the teeth of Smilodon to be a "specialized killing
mechanism" for ripping out the throats of it`s victims. Personally, in view
of how modern day cats often must chase down their prey and grab them from
behind, I see those teeth as an excellant mechanism for digging into the
prey on either side of the spinal column and helping it to hold on in
addition to its huge claws, thus eventually exhausting the animal, whence it
could be further dispatched by a throathold.