Abstract

In recent years, advances in our understanding of feline relationships have cast light on their evolutionary history. In contrast, there have been no phylogenetic analyses on machairodont felids, rendering problematic evolutionary hypothesis based on the recent surge of studies on their craniomandibular morphology and functional anatomy. In this paper, I provide the first phylogenetic hypothesis of machairodont relationships based on 50 craniomandibular and dental characters from a wide range of sabercats spanning more 11 MYA. Exact searches produced 19 most parsimonious trees, and a strict consensus was well resolved. The Machairodontinae comprise a number of basal taxa (Promegantereon, Machairodus, Nimravides, Dinofelis, Metailurus) and a well supported clade of primarily Plio-Pleistocene taxa (Megantereon, Smilodon, Amphimachairodus, Homotherium, Xenosmilus) for which the name Eumachairodontia taxon novum is proposed. Previous phenetic grouping of machairodont taxa into three distinct groups, the Smilodontini, Homotherini, and Metailurini, was not supported by cladistic parsimony analysis, and forcing monophyly of these groups was significantly incompatible with character distribution. Machairodonts as a clade are not characterized by saberteeth, i.e., hypertrophied, bladelike upper canines, but by small lower canines, as well as small M1; and large P3 parastyle. True saberteeth arose later and are a synapomorphy of the Eumachairodontia.