Encyclopedia
Thylacosmilus
common

Thylacosmilus

Thylacosmilus atrox

Era: NeogeneDiet: CarnivorousPeriod: MioceneWeight: 150kg

Thylacosmilus is an extinct genus of saber-toothed metatherian mammals that inhabited South America from the Late Miocene to Pliocene epochs. Though Thylacosmilus looks similar to the "saber-toothed cats", it was not a felid, like the well-known American Smilodon, but a sparassodont, a group closely related to marsupials, and only superficially resembled other saber-toothed mammals due to convergent evolution, with the aforementioned Thylacosmilus being one of the last known sparassodonts