Barbourofelis Longest Canines Around

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=xw2Sbsk1MiM

I can touch this ;-) • To celebrate #WorldLionDay (8/10/24) I’m bringing out the “big canines” of a critter only distantly related to lions, both being part of the Superfamily #Feloidea (heh, I don’t get to use Superfamily that often!). • Meet #Barbourofelis fricki, these may be, in absolute terms, the longest canines around, 9” straight, 10” around the curve. • The ~2.6 mya Nebraska skull “was discovered only a few days after Dr. Barbour’s death in 1947,” who was the Director of the University of Nebraska State Museum, and named in 1970. The species celebrates Childs Frick, who worked there as well. This duo advanced Nebraska paleo. • It lounges in its own family, #Barbourofelidae, “lion-bears” is what my friend dubs them, thanks to their stocky body and powerful limbs, roughly the size of a large African #lion, if the lion bulked up like a #bear. • The saberguard (aka flange on the ramus) projects quite far on the lower jaw. The sabers leave two massive puncture wounds,big blood flow, and severed tissues from a “double tap.” • The skull is short front-to-back, differing from the longer skulls of #Smilodon and other felids. The shortening is a result of a smaller braincase, the muzzle in plenty long. • It has a high sagital crest which grants extremely powerful temporal muscles. Bite-city! • That absolutely massive postorbital bar may help keep the back of the eye orbit safe when twas being a stabby tabby. • Look just to the right of the front of the eye and you will see a large pit. The describers called it a lacrimal fossa and thought it was unique to this genus. The odd pieces of info one gets reading the original papers :-). • They hypothesized twas an ambush predator, camouflaged, patiently waiting to leap atop prey, maybe even rising up on its hind legs, using its gigantic front paws to swipe-punch-stun, those huge hand claws gain purchase, then open up and say awwww, as it stabbed with tremendous force the prey’s neck or spinal region. • It is a pretty cool thing to hold the skull and move the lower jaw around. • #FossilCrates

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