ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[Wolverine]

You are right, arctodus was much more carnivorous than modern brown bear, actually as long as I know it was 100% carnivore, same as modern polar bear. So if assume that gigantic short faced bear was an aggressive scavenger and not a hunter (this is only a hypthotesys not a fact) than obviously it needed much more frequently to displace other predators from their kill. Brown bear can eat plants and in order to get the risk to displace a tiger it need to be or too hungry or to fill that particular tiger is weak for  some reason. Actually size and weight ratio bear-cat is not so favourable for brown bear. If Ussuri brown bear is only 1,4 heavier than Amur tiger, ancient arctodus was 2,4 times heavier than smilodon or American lion (maximum weight for arctodus - 1,1 tons, 450 kg for smilodon and 400 kg for American lion). So for modern brown bear should be much more risky and dangerous to displace a tiger than was for arctodus to displace a smilodon.

As you can see short faced bear was much larger than smilodon:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Also such a behavior could be possible only if we assume that smilodon and American lion were solitary cats, but if they lived in prides like African lions than this could completely change the game. Unlike zoology in paleontology everything is only theory and speculation. Reply