The skulls showed the saber tooth socket was occupied by two teeth, with the adult tooth slotted into the baby tooth.
Saber-toothed tigers may have had two sets of their famous fangs for a period of their adolescence, fossil evidence reveals.One species of these ancient and extinct cats, famed for their large and powerful saber-like teeth, is named Smilodon fatalis. The discovery of over 2,000 of these cats' skulls at the La Brea Tar Pits near Los Angeles established them as California's state fossil.Many of these skulls were found with double fangs, which were initially thought to be a fluke.
This strange system helped stabilize the growing adult tooth, protecting it from lateral breakage during its eruption, the theory goes.'This new study is a confirmation—a physical and simulation test—of an idea some collaborators and I published a couple of years ago: that the timing of the eruption of the sabers has been tweaked to allow a double-fang stage,' Tseng said.
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