Saber-Toothed Cats and Wolves: Bone and Joint Disease in Ancient Predators

KOMPAS.com – Bones from two species of predator, one of which was a saber-toothed cat found in the La Brea tar pits in what is now West Hollywood, show something of interest.

The bones revealed that sabre-tooth cats and wolves, dating from about 12,000 years ago, suffered from signs of bone and joint disease not normally seen in wild animals.

“They looked so big and scary. But the evidence for this disease may indicate that saber-toothed cats and wolves are going through difficult times,” said Mairin Balisi, a paleontologist at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in California.

The fossil record of the saber-toothed cat is interesting

Quoted from Live Science, Thursday (13/7/2023) at the end of the last ice age, the area that is now Los Angeles was home to an ecosystem full of giant mammals,

Among them are the Colombian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi), Jefferson’s ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersonii), and ancient bison (Bison antiquus).

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Meanwhile at the top of the food chain were formidable carnivores, including the saber-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis) and the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus).

Some of these animals then end up falling into the La Brea tar pits – natural puddles of asphalt. That allowed their remains to be preserved in the pit until they were excavated by paleontologists.

The research team examined hundreds of bones of saber-toothed cats and dire wolves for evidence of a disease called osteochondrosis dissecans (OCD), in which defects form in the bones along joints.

This disease can occur in modern dogs and cats as well as humans and increases the risk of developing osteoarthritis, a painful joint disease.

Balisi said they did not expect to find much evidence of OCD in these carnivores because there is not much data on bone and joint disease in modern wild animals.

However, it turned out that 6 percent of the femurs of the saber-toothed cats they studied had visible defects. In dire wolves, 2.6 percent of their femur and 4.5 percent of their shoulders are deformed.

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“Seeing these kinds of diseases in the fossil record is very exciting, because it gives us a holistic view of how they evolved and changed over time,” said Ashley Reynolds, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Ottawa and the Canadian Museum of Nature, who was not involved in the research.

Causes of bone and joint disease

Researchers speculate the bone and joint disease is due to inbreeding that occurs because the population size is getting smaller and closer to the final extinction.

Geographically, these ice age giants were isolated, thus increasing inbreeding.

This then leads to an increase in disease, one of which is OCD which is becoming common.

However, there is no stored genetic evidence to test the theory directly. So it needs further research to find out.

A study on arthritis, which turns out to be also experienced by saber-toothed cats, has been published in the journal PLOS One.

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2023-07-14 02:30:00
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