There were many saber tooth cat species living during the Cenozoic but most of them evolved separately from one another. Apparently, the characteristics shared by various species of saber tooth cat were very beneficial to their survival. Although saber tooth cats lived from 33.7 million years ago to 9,000 years ago, the divergence of each species occurred very early on. The first line of saber tooth cats to become their own species was the cats leading to the species known as Thylacosmilus. Suprisingly, this marsupial diverged in the late Creatceous and had more similarities to opossums and kangaroos than any feline. Before the feline version of the saber tooth cat diverged, the creodonts and the nimravids came first. |
