Eyes located at a sufficient distance helped saber-toothed tigers during hunting. This conclusion was recently made by the staff of the American Museum of Natural History and the Argentine Institute of Nivology, Glaciology and Environmental Sciences.
The marsupial saber-toothed tiger or Thylacosmilus atrox became the subject of their research for a reason. And to be more precise, scans with the image of his skull. Scientists from Argentina and the United States studied computer tomography of the skulls of three large predators that weighed approximately 100 kg during their lifetime and died out about 3 million years ago.
After studying them, scientists came to the conclusion that the animal compensated for the strange location of the eyes by expanding the orbits of the eyes outwards and orienting them vertically. This is what helped the predator to achieve a 70-degree overlapping field of vision, like cats.
It was also explained where these animals got a similar structure of the skull. The reason was incredibly long fangs that grew throughout his life. Their roots later went further into the skull. It was this anatomical feature that led to the animal's uniquely widely spaced eyes.
Source: nature.com
