Word: smilodon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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About the size of a modern lion, the sabertooth, or Smilodon (from the Greek words for "knife" and "tooth"), had powerful jaws equipped with two long fangs that it could use like daggers to rip into large prey, notably the poky, plant-eating mastodons that also inhabited the American continent. When the elephant-like mastodons began to die out, the sabertooth's days were also numbered. Slower afoot than modern tigers and possessed of a smaller brain, the sabertooth could not keep up with speedier prey that might have assured its survival. Indeed, archaeological dating of the remains...
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