Fossil Skull From a Museum Drawer Reveals Obscure Saber-Toothed Cat Species With Knife-like Teeth
Bias ratings based on AllSides + Ad Fontes Media. Agreement % = sources covering this story. Always read multiple sources and think critically.
Learn about a surprise find of an early saber-toothed cat skull in a museum drawer, revealing how the teeth of ancient cats evolved.
Jack Knudson is an Associate Editor for Discover Magazine who writes articles on space, ancient humans, animals, and sustainability, and manages the Planet Earth column for print.View Full Profile. Fossils of a saber-toothed cat that roamed North America more than 5 million years ago are helping to fill in the incomplete history of the ancient world's fearsome felid predators. A nearly complete skull of an enigmatic saber-toothed species, Adelphailurus kansensis, turned up in an unexpected location: a museum drawer.
A new study published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology has identified the cranium, teeth, and lower jaw that were fortuitously dug out of a drawer at the American Museum of Natural History, confirming that the fossils belong to A. Among the most notable qualities of this cat were its serrated knife-like teeth, which were perfect for shredding flesh — these sharp teeth, though, may have eventually played a role in the decline of saber-toothed cats. When University of California, Berkeley postdoctoral fellow Narimane Chatar pulled a peculiar felid cranium out of a drawer at the American Museum, she knew she had stumbled upon something surprising.
The cranium, originally from Arizona, was labeled Pseudaelurus (meaning “false cat”), a catch-all designation for any unidentified fossil that looks like a cat. This cranium, however, didn’t look like any modern cat. Chatar scanned the fossil and would later compare it to the original fossil of A.
kansensis, which was discovered in Kansas in 1924. The two fossils shared many similarities, leading Chatar to determine that the American Museum cranium was actually another set of remains from A. Chatar compared this first complete skull of A.
kansensis with other saber-toothed cats, including the poster child of the felid predators, Smilodon, which lived in the Americas from roughly 2.5 million to about 10,000 years ago. “Back in the days when we thought about sabertooths, we thought ‘Smilodon,’ and that's it. We thought that all species that exhibited a somewhat saber-like tooth morphology must have hunted like Smilodon and behaved like Smilodon,” Chatar said in a statement.
“We are now starting to see a great disparity within those animals, and especially in the early diverging taxa, like Adelphailurus kansensis.” Saber-toothed cats, naturally, are known for their sharp teeth. But these cats didn’t always have the exact same teeth from their emergence to extinction. Saber-toothed cats had upper canines that were flattened laterally, like a knife, allowing them to effortlessly slice flesh and sever arteries.
These teeth eventually evolved to become larger; the slightly serrated teeth of the early-diverging A. kansensis were smaller than those of the late-diverging Smilodon.
Think About This
What questions does this story raise for you? Talk with your family: Why does this news matter? Who is affected? What might happen next? Is there anything you can do?
- Ask your child: “What do you think scientists discovered about fossil skull? What part surprised you most?”
- Explore together: Search for “fossil skull” on NASA Kids’ Club, DK Find Out, or National Geographic Kids for more kid-friendly facts.
- Critical thinking: Science findings can change as more research is done. Ask: “How would scientists test this? What would prove them wrong?”
KiddieDaily is built for families — balanced sources, no agenda, no ads. Always read the original source and think for yourself.
Original Sources
🔍 Want to verify this story? Check it on Google Fact Check Explorer →
More stories: Kid News · Archive · Fact Check