Smilodon populator vs. Polar Bear

[rock]

May 15, 2019 17:42:23 GMT 5 DonaldCengXiongAzuma said:

I think all three of us agree on the same subject except with a few minimal disagreements.

thats good that we can all come to a agreement

[elosha11]

May 15, 2019 17:40:57 GMT 5 rock said:

May 15, 2019 17:35:10 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

Yes, in a temperature neutral environment this is pretty even

i would back a male polar bear to beat a male or female smilodon populator at average or at even weights . but a smilodon would have a chance to beat a female polar bear .

A really big Smilodon should handle a female polar bear, they only reach around 700 to 800 pounds, while really big S. populators exceeded 400 kgs/900 pounds. Given their grappling ability, and the female polar bear's less robust overall frame (compared to a male polar bear), I think the big cat has very good odds of winning. I don't think their fangs were quite as brittle as has been implied in various threads. Moreover, see what @infinityblade just recently posted in a research article about a huge S. populator skull. Implies this cat could have preyed on animals up to 3 tons. From the abstract:

This specimen is remarkable for its unusual craniodental measurements, indicating that it is one of the largest known specimens of the genus. Estimates of body mass indicate that this individual weighed over 400 kg. In addition, maximum prey size estimation greatly surpasses 1 t and approach nearly 3 t. Based on this, aspects of the paleobiology and paleoecology of S. populator are discussed. Undoubtedly, this kind of carnivorous mammal was at the top of the food chain, with clear adaptations for feeding upon the largest available herbivores, which potentially includes several megafaunal mammal species found in South America during the late Pleistocene.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03115518.2019.1701080?journalCode=talc20&

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

A large male polar bear is still too much for any smilodon populator. Female polar bears do overlap in range with female polar bears and will be interesting.

[dinosauria101]

^Yes, you'd need a very large populator (as in 400 kg) for a close match with the average male polar bear (400-500 kg). That would be interesting however.

[brobear]

( IMHO ) If the Smilodon ambushes the polar bear, he can kill the polar bear more often than not. In a face-off confrontation, the bear has the advantage.

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

Mar 10, 2020 0:01:51 GMT 5 brobear said:

( IMHO ) If the Smilodon ambushes the polar bear, he can kill the polar bear more often than not. In a face-off confrontation, the bear has the advantage.

This interaction is similar to Ussuri brown bear vs Siberian tiger. A male polar bear is just too big for a smilodon populator. A 900 pound smilodon populator can ambush a similar size or slightly heavier male but male polar bears which reach at least 1100 pounds will be dangerous for even the largest smilodon populator even by ambush. Male polar bears beat male smilodon populator in a fight to death face to face.

[elosha11]

I'd favor a large S. populator against female polar bears, and probably against any male polar bear of comparable size. But I do generally agree with @greenarrow's above post. Once the polar bear starts getting significantly larger than the cat, the odds tip more and more in the bear's favor.

I'm sure this has been noted before in this thread, but this fight is probably physically impossible, due the extreme differences in the animals' preferred climates. Still, it's fun to consider as a pure hypothetical.

[dinosauria101]

^Good analogy - a female would certainly lose, and one could certainly favor the sabertooth at parity, but yeah, a good size 400-500 kg male polar bear can win for sure.

[DonaldCengXiongAzuma]

Mar 11, 2020 1:07:42 GMT 5 dinosauria101 said:

^Good analogy - a female would certainly lose, and one could certainly favor the sabertooth at parity, but yeah, a good size 400-500 kg male polar bear can win for sure.

400 to 500 kg (880 to 1100 pounds) is the average weight for male polar bears. Male polar bears in Foxe Basin have the largest average weight of all polar bears (1000 to 1200 pounds). 
While a smilodon populator has more robust limbs pound to pound, a male polar bear has stronger shoulder muscles and is a better grappler than the male smilodon populator even at parity.
Male smilodon populators reach 900 pounds (for exceptionally large males). 

[dinosauria101]

Yeah, bears are usually pretty good grapplers. That's still one advantage it has at parity.

[6f5e4d]

The bear is much bigger than the Smilodon, and with its cold adaptations and powerful claws and teeth, it is more built for victory.

[elosha11]

Smilodon populator size estimates keep going up. In addition to the potentially 400 kg one I mentioned above, there appears to be another one with a 960 pound estimate.





From NY Times, March 14, 2020.

By Joshua Sokol
Published March 14, 2020
Updated March 16, 2020

When the curator mentioned a huge saber-toothed tiger skull stored behind the scenes of the National Museum of Natural History in Montevideo, Uruguay, Aldo Manzuetti had to see for himself.

The skull belonged to Smilodon populator. Extinct for about 10,000 years, the heavily muscled species once Hulk-smashed its way through South American fauna in the Pleistocene. To picture a normal individual, start with an African lion. Then double its size and add giant fangs.

But this one wasn’t normal. The skull was 16 inches long, making previous large specimens from the species look small. “I thought I was doing something wrong,” said Mr. Manzuetti, a doctoral student in paleontology at Uruguay’s University of the Republic. He was using the head to infer the likely size of the animal’s body. “I checked the results a lot of times, and only after doing that I realized I hadn’t made any mistakes.”

His analysis showed the skull sat atop a beast that likely tipped the scales at around 960 pounds. The specimen’s existence, he and colleagues reported earlier this month in the journal Alcheringa, suggests that the largest saber-toothed tigers might have been able to take down giant plant-eaters, heavy as pickup trucks, that researchers had thought were untouchable.

Ricardo Praderi, an amateur collector, first dug up the prehistoric predator’s skull in September 1989 in southern Uruguay. The site had otherwise yielded only the fossils of herbivores. He then donated it to the archives of the national museum, Mr. Manzuetti said.

“I would love to find something like that,” said Margaret Lewis, a paleontologist at Stockton University in New Jersey who did not participate in the research.

Scientists knew South America was haunted by the ghosts of vanished Pleistocene carnivores. Beyond Smilodon populator, known since 1842 from fossils in a Brazilian cave, the continent also hosted another smaller Smilodon species, as well as jaguars, lions and Arctotherium, the biggest bear ever known. The saber-tooths were cats, not tigers, although the more fearsome name has stuck in many settings. The first humans to settle the continent, God help them, arrived at around the same time.

But the top tier of possible prey — armored armadillos comparable to Volkswagens, lumbering mastodons, the 12-foot-tall ground sloth Megatherium — would have challenged even the fiercest hunter.“We’ve always wondered: Who could take down a giant ground sloth?” said Kevin Seymour, a paleontologist at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum who reviewed the research.

The new skull suggests an answer. “If Smilodon is getting this big, there’s a potential for it to be taking down these giant adult herbivores,” Dr. Seymour said. Still, whether it actually did depends on a few factors.

Big cats alive today can’t bring down anything too far beyond their own size, because they kill by strangling or breaking the necks of their victims. That forces them to wrestle up close and dodge flailing limbs and hooves. But paleontologists believe Smilodon may have used more elegant weapons — its signature sabers — to slash a vulnerable area. Then it could step back and wait in safety, putting larger prey on the menu.

If Smilodon hunted in teams, that would also have allowed it to hunt much larger animals. But the evidence it worked in packs is still equivocal, Dr. Seymour said.

Mr. Manzuetti’s team also pointed out damage on the front of the skull that could suggest an attack from a saber-bearing rival.

“If that is true, that is a fascinating finding,” Dr. Lewis said. But what stood out to her most was the sheer size. “It’s a beautiful thing to look at,” she said. “I just keep thinking of the power, and the potential things that this animal could have been doing out there in the ecosystem.”

[smedz]

elosha11

That's insane! If I saw a pack of them coming my way, this would be me.

"NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE!!!"

They were in the right habitat for a big cat the size of a lion or bigger to be in groups, although being bigger might come at the cost of having less endurance than their smaller cousins (unless they had more slow-twitch muscle which is very doubtful). But I suppose a lack of stamina could have been another reason to form groups, one cat chases a prey item like a Macrauchenia towards another one to catch and kill it.

[Infinity Blade]

elosha11

That is the one you mentioned above. The S. populator in the study I posted was estimated to be 436 kg, which is pretty much equal to 960 pounds.

But, and you can take this for what it's worth, I do remember a GDI estimate of what I assume was a different specimen on a Discord server I'm on, and it came out to be just a little over 400 kg too.

[smedz]

Apr 2, 2020 2:50:29 GMT 5 Infinity Blade said:

elosha11

That is the one you mentioned above. The S. populator in the study I posted was estimated to be 436 kg, which is pretty much equal to 960 pounds.

But, and you can take this for what it's worth, I do remember a GDI estimate of what I assume was a different specimen on a Discord server I'm on, and it came out to be just a little over 400 kg too.

Interesting, and I think it's known what question should be answered next. Why get so big in the first place?