Not Quite A Cat? Wasn’t This Supposed to be About Whales?
Sometimes when it looks like a cat and acts like a cat it’s not; it’s a nimravid! Nimravids are a rather problematic group in the order Carnivora of uncertain descent. Entering the fossil record in the late Eocene (36 million years ago), their exact relationship to other carnivore families is unresolved, but they paralleled cats to an amazing degree. With short faces and fully hooded, retractile claws, they came in body shapes and sizes that covered all of the diversity that true cats would later manifest. Some were as small as house cats, while others were the ecological and functional equivalents of lynx, cheetah and leopard. And all except one lone genus were saber-toothed.
Before we go on, let’s get these curved teeth straight. Saber-teeth evolved from normal, conical canine teeth into two forms. Dirk teeth were the long, curved, finely serrated blades that we normally think of when we think saber-toothed. The famous Smilodon - the saber-toothed “tiger” of LaBrea Tar Pits fame - was a dirk-toothed true felid. There were also scimitar-toothed animals with shorter, more coarsely serrated blades that usually evolved in conjunction with longer-legged cursorial body types. Most of the dirk-toothed animals were compact, robust stalkers.
For a closer look at Barbourofelis fricki click here
Barbourofelis fricki was the last of the nimravids, dirk-toothed and huge. Its name, “Barbour’s Cat“, shows just how close and how confusing convergent similarities can be. This was a massive creature, the size of a modern lion, but more heavily built. At rest or when walking, it stood and moved in a plantigrade fashion, rather like a bear. One look at the business end of the animal however, lets you know that Barbourofelis wasn’t looking for berries. It possessed some of the largest saber-teeth of all time, and the body to back them up. Behind the catlike face, the head had a flat profile caused by the expanded occipital region at the back of the skull. This allowed for the attachment of powerful neck and shoulder musculature, the driving force behind the sabers. This was a stalker and killer of large game.
Nimravids have an interesting history in North America. Throughout the Oligocene, they assumed all the predatory roles later taken by true cats. But by the beginning of the Miocene, 23 million years ago, they had all disappeared. For whatever reason, perhaps because there was an abundance of arctoid (doglike) carnivores of all descriptions present here at the time, there were no nimravids in North America for the next few million years. Felids also were missing and made their North American debut in the form of a small conical-toothed animal, Pseudailurus, about 17 million years ago. (Showing up to really confuse things a few million years later was a scimitar-toothed true cat named Nimravides! Got that? “Barbour’s Cat” is a nimravid, and Nimravides is a real cat! Aurgh!!!)
Finally, after a 10 million year absence, nimravids returned, most likely from Asia, in the form of Barbourofelis. They show up as moderate-sized creatures with moderate-sized dirk teeth.
For a closer look at Hipparion’s very bad day click here
This is an early barbourofelid species based on California material attacking the three-toed horse Hipparion. It is also one of my very first digital paintings. It was done a few years ago for an article by Joe Eaton in the September, 2001 issue of Bay Nature, a Northern California publication dedicated to all aspects of San Francisco Bay Area natural history. Getting this image ready for Olduvai - and I did work on it - I was amazed at how much I’ve improved with this computerized medium. The drawing is fine, except that I gave Barbourofelis a tail that was too long (digitally fixed now), but the color rendering was primitive. My thanks to the editor, David Loeb, for letting me experiment on his dime.
One of the problems with having killing teeth like this was eating the meat once it was secured. Barbourofelis solved the problem by having robust incisors and shearing carnassial teeth to strip and slice meat from bone. Utilizing the carnassials must have been problematic, because the animal had to move its cheek out of the way behind and outside the sabers. You don’t have a 5 million year history without solving those gnawing problems. (I’m SO sorry! I couldn’t stop myself.)
The trouble with a post like this is that it’s a book in the making. There is so much to draw and write about, and so many questions yet to be answered, that I really don’t know what to leave out and what tidbit people might find most interesting. For instance, looking at the paintings the one thing you can’t help but notice is the dependent flange on the mandible of the animals. These protected the sabers when the mouth was closed and there was little room to spare between the saber and the bone of the lower jaw. Maybe I’ve missed it, but I can’t recall having seen anybody paint this as the gum-lined half sheath I’ve portrayed here. There certainly wasn’t enough room for hair to grow, and unless the tooth was supported by being in contact with the flange, it would have defeated its supposed purpose. (I should add that the dirk-toothed felids like Smilodon didn’t have the flange. This is such fun.)
I want to note that things will be changing here at Olduvai George soon. I’ll have an announcement next week about some exciting new developments that will help me to post more often and include more new illustrations. New old whales are coming.
I was hoping to have Kutchicetus up this week but I haven’t nailed the look yet as the new work is based on material I hadn’t seen until last week. 2007 promises to be a very busy year.
December 20th, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Wow. Your blog combines several of my passions -art, paleantology, science and, I believe, free-thinking. Keep it coming; I look forward to seeing the new paintings; and yes, a book would be welcome as well. -J
December 21st, 2006 at 1:18 am
Great as always. I love those flanges!!!
Reminds me of Beardogs… well… I’ve never seen an image of a beardog, so this is kind of what I pictured.
But Beardogs are Amphicyonids.
December 21st, 2006 at 5:45 am
I’ve never really thought about those teeth before. It appears to me that once an animal was brought down and killed, those teeth would have been more in the way than useful.
December 21st, 2006 at 6:34 am
The flanges are cool. How did Smilodon cope without them, I wonder? The teeth would have just dangled free…
December 21st, 2006 at 1:41 pm
Not that it’s something that requires a lot of explanation, but I did notice the scars you put on the animal. That’s the kind of touch that lets your audience understand that this was a living, breathing, fighting beast. Ok, one question: Were you thinking of wounds inflicted by prey, or fights with other B. frickii? I don’t know enough about modern big cat behavior to draw the parallel, but I bet you did the research for it.
December 21st, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Your work is amazing! Thanks for sharing it online.
I’m building science readers for middle school kids who are learning English. I would love to publish your Ambulocetus/crab image with some whale evolution readings I’m developing. This is a pilot project of the Colorado Department of Education. We distribute the readers to schools free of charge. Would it be possible for us to reproduce your work?
December 21st, 2006 at 7:34 pm
As always Carl, an amazing post. Amazing art, insightful words. Who could ask for anything more.
December 21st, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Nice to have you back Carl. The whole gum thing is weird looking (like lots of nature) and not something I’d ever thought of. I wonder if the exposed flesh would stay pink or colour up like other exposed hairless body parts on some mammals - noses, foot pads etc?
December 21st, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Beautiful, as usual…I’ll have to alert my (few) readers that you’ve updated!
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:09 am
[...] I just wanted to let you all know that Oludvai George has posted another entry showcasing his beautiful illustrations, this time looking at some cat-like animals in the order Carnivora. Take a look and enjoy these fascinating peeks into the life that preceded us. [...]
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:16 am
I’ve always been curious about those flanges. What do you suppose the texture of the gum side was? It couldn’t have been as well lubricated as gums inside the mouth. I would expect chapping, spliting, and infection to have been enough of a danger that they would have evolved some sort of protection (or not survived). Do you envision that it was more like a cat or dog’s nose, lubricated with some type of mucus? Or dryer, like lips, maybe with some sort of oil lubricant?
December 22nd, 2006 at 11:50 am
As a nimravid fan from way back, I applaud their long-overdue entry into the blogging world.
December 22nd, 2006 at 1:48 pm
I’m happy to see you posting again and await of the coming news. Always a pleasure to look at your art and to read enlighting insights. Just a question: Why nimravides are classified separated from felids, what differences there are between them?
December 22nd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Help me put together The Anthology of the Best Science Blogging!…
You may have seen (or even bought and read) those annual collections of science-related articles that were published in print press over a course of a year, e.g., The Best American Science Writing 2006 or The Best American Science and……
December 23rd, 2006 at 2:56 pm
Nimravids…..ah, to be wandering the North American Miocene plains(with a good elephant rifle).The apex of large land mammal diversity, and the first golden age of mammals.A staggering and bewildering array of mammal herbivores, and an equally huge array of terrifying carnivores.Not the least *Barbourofelis fricki*.Though I imagine having a 1,500 kg death hog in the form of *Deinodon* would’ve given pause to even the most brazen nimravid over a carcass quarrel.
Did you know that characteristics of nimravid internal ear structures have given some authors the idea they may be dogs playing at being cats?
December 23rd, 2006 at 6:53 pm
One of the most fascinating aspects to the layman of the detective work of paleontology is the educated guess work in reconstructing images that include specific features like the gum flanges Barbourofelis is displaying. How do we know what form this soft tissue took?
I guess ligament and other connection points on fossilised bone give a lot of hints, but its still intriguing. I think the image shown here is realistic and fits a lot of criteria for accuracy.
December 25th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
I was wondering why you had painted the flange as being so prominently, but a quick web search brough up a picture of the mandible:
http://paleo.amnh.org/fossil/show.html?cat_num=FM%2061980
(OK, it a different species). Neat to see the flesh on the bones!
But, if I understand you, the beast would kill its prey, and then nibble it afterwards. I don’t know, it seems to destroy the macho image somewhat.
Bob
December 25th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
` You’d think those teeth would be a disadvantage, but nay, not only did cats evolve them but so did those Nimravithingies. What I thought was so strange, though, was Thylacosmilus. Please tell us you’ll do paintings of Ice Age marsupials, too!!
December 26th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
Good to see Barbourofelis again. I really enjoyed doing that Bay Nature project.
December 31st, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Lovely post! Keep it coming.
January 19th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Nimravids- who would’ve thought- thanks for a memorable new animal for further looking into. Wonderful illustration!
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:00 pm
“These protected the sabers when the mouth was closed and there was little room to spare between the saber and the bone of the lower jaw. Maybe I’ve missed it, but I can’t recall having seen anybody paint this as the gum-lined half sheath I’ve portrayed here. There certainly wasn’t enough room for hair to grow, and unless the tooth was supported by being in contact with the flange, it would have defeated its supposed purpose.”
- Having looked at pictures of a barbourofelis skull i know exactly what you mean when u say that there is very little space between the teeth, and the lower jaw flanges. Seeing your illustration showing the gum tissue exposed on the outside of the mouth makes me wonder if there could have been a flap of skin that would have covered those flanges and the teeth when the mouth was closed (a full sheath) - is there any way to determine this by looking at the skull? - I just seem to have this problem in the back of my mind about most of the sabertoothed animals having their teeth exposed outside of their mouths, this would leave the animals most vital killing utensils exposed to the elements, and in an animal such as barbourofelis where it already has bone tissue extended out to protect the teeth, it makes me wonder whether or not it had a muscular lip system on its lower jaw (like humans) and it could relax and flex it appropriately to fit its teeth into a full sheeth… just a random idea that i thought i’d share with you, i dont know if it has ever come up or not as I am no expert on the barbourofelis
February 4th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Congratulations George! Superb art and a wonderful blog. Nature art and palaeo reconstruction does not get any better than your work. Your blog’s palaeo mammal focus is also a great tonic to those of us who have a hangover from the web’s rampant dinobinge….which is fine, in moderation, of course. Please publish a book. A large, glossy book!
As far as barbourofelines being nimravid, I wanted to mention a contrary opinion put forward in the following paper:
Michael Morlo, Stephane Peigne and Doris Nagel, A new species of Prosansanosmilus: implications for the systematic relationship of the family Barbourofelidae new rank (Carnivora, Mammmalia), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2004, 140, 43-61.
An extract from the abstract: “A phylogenetic analysis based on dental characters of early nimravids, barbourofelids and felids supports previous results on skull morphology of Barbourofelis that Barbourofelinae is not closely related to the Late Eocene and Oligocene Nimravinae. Instead, both subfamilies should be treated as separate families, with the Barbourofelidae closely related to the Felidae. The Barbourofelidae differ from the Felidae as well as from the Nimravidae sensu stricto, particularly in the unique morphology of their basicranium. They presumably originated in Africa; Prosansanosmilus eggeri sp.nov. is interpreted as part of a Miocene immigration of African faunal elements into Europe that took place at the beginning of MN5 (Middle Miocene).” This Middle Miocene emigration from Africa was the so-called Creodont Event, other notable migrants to Eurasia at this time being the giant hyaenodontid Hyainailurus, and the proboscidean Gomphotherium. The authors interpret the Barbourofelidae as the sister-group of the Felidae.
November 24th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Two small observations re barbourofelis, The first is that I bet his mum didn’t have any problems with him biting his nails and the second is that I bet he couldn’t say ’six saucy salty silly sausages’ 5 times fast.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Ha-ha! Another upstart scientist tryng to make a name for himself! The “great African exodus” has been the subject of much discussion & hotly debated. They have even gone so far as to suggest that Africa was the original homeland of the creodonts?! Maybe so? Maybe marsupials originated in South America? Both of these continents are much less studied than North America-which has much older fossils. I think that Barbourofelis was a re-invading nimravid from Africa-Asia proper. After all, the subject”is” evolution. And change is inevitable-even among nimravids. Barbourofelis was simply a “modernized” late form of nimravid!
March 28th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I am always happy to see the other ancient animals depicted. Not that dinos are all that humdrum, they are just somewhat over represented on the http://WWW.
More ancient horse ancestors - please.
But, maybe not ones having such a, “Bad Day”.
It almost seeming to be becoming stereotypic, to depict early horses disappearing down some big thing’s gullet!
How trite! Is there any less cliche means of amplifying scale.
The author, David P. Willoughby, called the North American continent “The Cradle Of Equus. Perhaps it is time to show one turning the table on poor ol’ Barbourofelis.
My own rare breed, Spanish Mustang stallion eats cougars for late night snacks, apparently, judging by the signs left out in our Rocky Mountain pastures after a noisy night. He even saved a mouth full of tawny fur, once, as proof. He is a doting father, and takes very good care of his babies. And he is as gentle with people, and dogs that he gets to know really well, as he is to them. He just goes after big cats, and packing wild dogs (I suspect he wouldn’t like wolves very much, either). I think that most of the modern day horse breeds are beginning to loose too many of their ancient, primitive survival instincts.
March 30th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I’ve always been fascinated by prehistoric times. Thanks for sharing!