剑齿虎因其匕首般的牙齿而闻名于世，然而与老虎、狮子甚至其他现代猫科动物相比，它们的致命一咬可能是最没劲儿的。
据美国《科学》杂志在线新闻报道，实际上，这种已经绝灭的猫科动物主要是依靠攻击的准确性来完成捕猎——它们会利用长长的牙齿迅速刺穿猎物的喉咙，这是研究人员根据剑齿虎头骨的进化而得出的分析结果。尽管很有效，这种捕猎方式却导致了剑齿虎走向灭亡，这是因为它们能够杀死的物种变得越来越有限。当猛犸和其他首选猎物相继绝灭，剑齿虎便也在地球上消失了。与此形成对照的是，现代猫科动物强大的咬合力使得它们能够捕杀不同种类的动物。研究人员在最近的《公共科学图书馆·综合》（PLoS One）网络版上报告了这一研究成果。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
PLoS One，3(7): e2807. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002807，Per Christiansen
Evolution of Skull and Mandible Shape in Cats (Carnivora: Felidae)
Per Christiansen*
Department of Vertibrates, Zoological Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark
Abstract
The felid family consists of two major subgroups, the sabretoothed and the feline cats, to which all extant species belong, and are the most anatomically derived of all carnivores for predation on large prey with a precision killing bite. There has been much controversy and uncertainty about why the skulls and mandibles of sabretoothed and feline cats evolved to become so anatomically divergent, but previous models have focused on single characters and no unifying hypothesis of evolutionary shape changes has been formulated. Here I show that the shape of the skull and mandible in derived sabrecats occupy entirely different positions within overall morphospace from feline cats, and that the evolution of skull and mandible shape has followed very different paths in the two subgroups. When normalised for body-size differences, evolution of bite forces differ markedly in the two groups, and are much lower in derived sabrecats, and they show a significant relationship with size and cranial shape, whereas no such relationship is present in feline cats. Evolution of skull and mandible shape in modern cats has been governed by the need for uniform powerful biting irrespective of body size, whereas in sabrecats, shape evolution was governed by selective pressures for efficient predation with hypertrophied upper canines at high gape angles, and bite forces were secondary and became progressively weaker during sabrecat evolution. The current study emphasises combinations of new techniques for morphological shape analysis and biomechanical studies to formulate evolutionary hypotheses for difficult groups.
