Three ways to be a saber-toothed cat

Saber-toothed carnivores, until now, have been divided into two groups: sci mitar-toothed cats with shorter, coarsely serrated canines coupled with lon g legs for fast running, and dirk-toothed cats with more elongate, finely s errated canines coupled to short legs built for power rather than speed. In the Pleistocene of North America, as in Europe, the scimitar-cat was Homot herium; the North American dirk-tooth was Smilodon. We now describe a new s abercat from the Early Pleistocene of Florida, combining the scimitar-tooth canine with the short, massive limbs of a dirk-tooth predator. This presen ts a third way to construct a saber-toothed carnivore.