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Science 23 July 1993:
Vol. 261. no. 5120, pp. 456 - 459
DOI: 10.1126/science.261.5120.456
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Articles

Tough Times at La Brea: Tooth Breakage in Large Carnivores of the Late Pleistocene

Blaire VanValkenburgh 1 and Fritz Hertel 1

1 Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1606

One million to two million years ago, most of today's large, predatory mammals coexisted with larger extinct species, such as saber-toothed cats and giant running bears. Comparisons of tooth fracture frequencies from modern and Pleistocene carnivores imply that predator-prey dynamics and interspecific interactions must have been substantially different 36,000 to 10,000 years ago. Tooth fracture frequencies of four Rancho La Brea species—dire wolf, coyote, saber-toothed cat, and American lion—were about three times that of extant carnivores. Consequently, these findings suggest that these species utilized carcasses more fully and likely competed more intensely for food than presentday large carnivores.

Submitted on March 24, 1993
Accepted on June 3, 1993


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Long in the tooth: evolution of sabertooth cat cranial shape.
G. J. Slater and B. Van Valkenburgh (2008)
Paleobiology 34, 403-419
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Deja vu: the evolution of feeding morphologies in the Carnivora.
B. Van Valkenburgh (2007)
Integr. Comp. Biol. 47, 147-163
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Reduced Competition and Altered Feeding Behavior Among Marine Snails After a Mass Extinction.
G. P. Dietl, G. S. Herbert, and G. J. Vermeij (2004)
Science 306, 2229-2231
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Taphonomic analysis of large mammals recovered from the Pleistocene Rancho La Brea tar seeps.
(2003)
Paleobiology 29, 561-575


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