Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2022 March 5

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March 5

Are clouded leopards closely related to Smilodon ?

Are clouded leopards closely related to saber-toothed tigers? 2001:569:5262:A00:A174:973F:3E7:EF2F (talk) 06:47, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

The first cladogram in the section Felidae § Phylogeny has a

blue box

and a

green box

. Smilodon belonged to the extinct †Machairodontinae genera, positioned in the blue box. All living felids, including the Pantherinae to which the clouded leopard belongs, belong to the green box. The split in the family tree occurred some 20 million years ago. The clouded leopard is more closely related to all non-extinct felid species, including house cats, than to Smilodon.  --Lambiam 08:10, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Are Clouded Leopards Smilodon's closet living relative? Someone on Quora showed me this answer: "Although Clouded Leopards have the longest canine teeth relative to body size of any big cat, they claim that they’re actually more closely related to other extinct felidae species than the saber-toothed tiger, but they do see that the same natural selection that led to saber-toothed tigers likely went down a similar type of path for the Clouded Leopard. There’s a whole article about their relationship to each other that can be accessed here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jeb.13309 2001:569:5262:A00:203F:7C80:2874:FAA2 (talk) 06:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

See also Convergent evolution and Sabre-toothed cat.  --Lambiam 06:58, 6 March 2022 (UTC)