Sabertooth cats make up a diverse group of long-toothed predators that roamed Africa around 6-7 million years ago, around the time that hominins — the group that includes modern humans — began to evolve. By examining one of the largest global Pliocene collections of fossils in Langebaanweg, north of Cape Town in South Africa, researchers present two new sabertooth species and the first family tree of the region’s ancient sabertooths. Their results suggest that the distribution of sabertooths throughout ancient Africa might have been different than previously assumed, and the study provides important information about Africa’s paleoenvironment.
