Late Pleistocene survival of the saber-toothed cat<i>Homotherium</i>in northwestern Europe

Abstract

Saber-toothed cats (Machairodontinae) were wide-spread, top predators of the Pleistocene terrestrial ecosystem. In Europe, they previously were known only from the early and middle Pleistocene, and their fossils are always extremely rare. The previous youngest record was from Steinheim a/d Murr, Germany, where an upper canine of Homotherium was found in a stratum dated to ca. 0.3 Ma. In this paper, we describe a well-preserved dentary of Homotherium latidens dated by 14C to be late Pleistocene, ca. 28,000 yrBP.