A misidentified skull in a museum collection turned out to be a very early saber-toothed cat, highlighting the evolutionary tendency toward longer and longer fangs.
By Robert Sanders
An artist’s rendering of what the early saber-toothed cat, Adelphailurus kansensis, might have looked like in its heyday 5 million years ago. About the size of today’s mountain lions, the cats already had teeth optimized for slicing and shredding flesh, though the fangs were much smaller than those of later sabertooths, such as the iconic Smilodon.
J. Gomarra for UC Berkeley
June 22, 2026
