Sabre-tooth tigers and dire wolves were in trouble before they vanished
Bones recovered from tar pits suggest both animals were becoming badly inbred
Along with the mammoth and the dire wolf, the sabre-tooth tiger was a casualty of the Quaternary Extinction, a die-off that happened between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago that seems to have affected big animals in particular.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “What the bones tell”
From the July 15th 2023 edition
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