Los Angeles -- Despite their long fangs, male saber-toothed tigers may have been less aggressive than other big cats of their time, researchers in California said.
The saber-toothed tiger, Smilodon fatalis, inhabited North and South America from about 1.6 million to 10,000 years ago, sharing its roaming grounds with a prehistoric cat called the American lion.
Remains of 19 saber-toothed cats and 13 American lions from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles were studied by Wendy Binder, a biologist at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and Julie Meachen-Samuels, a biologist at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, Durham, N.C.
