![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Prehistoric cats and cat-like creatures.
Aug. 30th, 2007 11:45 amPoured over PREHISTORIC CATS AND PREHISTORIC CAT-LIKE CREATURES; the page has lots of resources cited which makes me happy. Here are a few excerpts I found particularly interesting:
"Although they are often called "big cats" many of the prehistoric species were not true cats, but were cat-like mammals. South America and Australia were both island continents and lacked placental mammals. The "lions" and "tigers" of those continents were lion-like marsupials, more closely related to kangaroos, wombats and their like. They are known as "cat analogues" as they resembled cats and filled the same ecological niche as cats. Another line of prehistoric cats were the Paleofelids ("ancient cats") that developed in parallel with the true cats and from a common ancestor, but which have left no modern descendants. Finally there are the prehistoric true cats, extinct relatives of modern cats. Why would evolution create creatures very similar in form to cats? It's an example of convergent evolution - there are a limited number of solutions to environmental conditions hence animals that aren't closely related often independently evolve similar traits as they both adapt to similar environments and niches. The cat-like form has evolved at least three times: marsupial lions/tigers, Paleofelids and Neofelids. Sabre-toothed cat-like animals evolved separately four times in evolutionary history: Nimravids, Felids, Creodonts and the Thylacosmilids."
( Read more... )
"Although they are often called "big cats" many of the prehistoric species were not true cats, but were cat-like mammals. South America and Australia were both island continents and lacked placental mammals. The "lions" and "tigers" of those continents were lion-like marsupials, more closely related to kangaroos, wombats and their like. They are known as "cat analogues" as they resembled cats and filled the same ecological niche as cats. Another line of prehistoric cats were the Paleofelids ("ancient cats") that developed in parallel with the true cats and from a common ancestor, but which have left no modern descendants. Finally there are the prehistoric true cats, extinct relatives of modern cats. Why would evolution create creatures very similar in form to cats? It's an example of convergent evolution - there are a limited number of solutions to environmental conditions hence animals that aren't closely related often independently evolve similar traits as they both adapt to similar environments and niches. The cat-like form has evolved at least three times: marsupial lions/tigers, Paleofelids and Neofelids. Sabre-toothed cat-like animals evolved separately four times in evolutionary history: Nimravids, Felids, Creodonts and the Thylacosmilids."
( Read more... )
