Homotherium

Homotherium Temporal range: Early Pliocene to Late Pleistocene, 4–0.012 Ma[1] PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Skeleton of H. serum from Friesenhahn cave, Texas Science & Natural History Museum, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas.
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Suborder:	Feliformia
Family:	Felidae
Subfamily:	†Machairodontinae
Tribe:	†Homotherini
Genus:	†Homotherium Fabrini, 1890
Type species
Homotherium latidens Owen, 1846
Other species
Homotherium ischyrus (Merriam, 1905) Homotherium serum (Cope, 1893) Homotherium venezuelensis?Rincón et al., 2011 For others, see text
Synonyms
Dinobastis Cope, 1893 Ischyrosmilus Mawby, 1965

Homotherium is an extinct genus of scimitar-toothed cat belonging to the extinct subfamily Machairodontinae that inhabited North America, Eurasia, and Africa, as well as possibly South America during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs from around 4 million to 12,000 years ago.^[1][2] It was one of the last surviving members of the subfamily alongside the more famous sabertooth Smilodon, to which it was not particularly closely related. It was a large cat, comparable in size to a lion, functioning as an apex predator in the ecosystems it inhabited. It had an elongate neck and relatively elongate legs, a relatively short back and a very short tail, with the mummy of a H. latidens cub of Late Pleistocene age found in Siberia having a plain dark brown coat colour. In comparison to Smilodon, the canines of Homotherium were shorter, though still longer than those of living cats, and it is suggested to have had a different ecology from Smilodon as a pursuit predator adapted to running down large prey, such as equines, bison and juvenile mammoths in open habitats, with Homotherium also proposed to have likely engaged in cooperative hunting.