Jump to content

Origin of the misnomer saber-toothed tiger


DD1991

Recommended Posts

It's common knowledge that Smilodon has been mistakenly called the "saber-toothed tiger", yet it and other machairodontines were not closely related to the tiger or other members of the felid subfamily Pantherinae. However, Smilodon was the not the first saber-toothed cat to be bestowed the epithet "saber-toothed tiger". In a poem about Pleistocene mammals found in England, British poet Thomas Miller refers to the European machairodontine Homotherium latidens as a "saber-toothed tiger", in which case people in Europe and America had yet to literally use the term "saber-tooth tiger" for the Smilodon.

 

Link:

https://incertaesedisblog.wordpress.com/2022/06/28/the-origin-of-sabre-toothed-tiger/

  • I found this Informative 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

And the guy who wrote the blog has been our summer intern at theTate Museum

Edited by jpc
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 8/19/2022 at 5:09 PM, jpc said:

And the guy who wrote the blog has been our summer intern at theTate Museum

Tyler Greenfield may have been caught off guard to see that an 1846 poem by a British poet about the Pleistocene fauna of the UK implicitly referred to Homotherium latidens as a "saber-toothed tiger", because that misnomer has been historically used for Smilodon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...