Smilodon - Diet and Hunting

Diet and Hunting

Smilodon probably preyed on a wide variety of large game including bison, tapirs, deer, American camels, horses and ground sloths. As it is known for the saber-toothed cat Homotherium, Smilodon might have also killed juvenile mastodons and mammoths. Smilodon may also have attacked prehistoric humans, although this is not known for certain. The La Brea tar pits in California trapped hundreds of Smilodon in the tar, possibly as they tried to feed on mammoths already trapped. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has many of their complete skeletons.

Modern big cats kill mainly by crushing the windpipe of their victims, which may take a few minutes. Smilodon’s jaw muscles were probably too weak for this and its long canines and fragile skull would have been vulnerable to snapping in a prolonged struggle or when biting a running prey. Research in 2007 concluded that Smilodon most likely used its great upper-body strength to wrestle prey to the ground, where its long canines could deliver a deep stabbing bite to the throat which would generally cut through the jugular vein and/or the trachea and thus kill the prey very quickly. The leaders of this study also commented to scientific journalists that this technique may have made Smilodon a more efficient killer of large prey than modern lions or tigers, but also made it more dependent on the supply of large animals. This highly specialized hunting style may have contributed to its extinction, as Smilodon’s cumbersome build and over-sized canines would have made it less efficient at killing smaller, faster prey if the ecosystem changed for any reason. A later study concurred, finding that the forelimbs of Smilodon, more than those of any modern felid, were capable of minimizing the struggles of prey and positioning them for a quick kill with the predator's canines without them fracturing.