Lokotunjailurus emagiratus

[epaiva]

As tall at the shoulders as a lioness, it was more lightly built. In contrast to that of Homotherium, in Lokotunjailurus the lumbar section of the vertebral column was not greatly shortened. The holotype skeleton of Lokotunjailurus is excepcionally good preserved, including the articulated forepaws, with their claw phalanges in place.
This makes evident the disproportionately large size of the dewclaw, larger than the same element in a lion of considerable larger body size, while the claws of the second to the fourth digits were smaller than the same elements in a leopard, which of course is a much smaller animal than Lokotunjailurus. That huge dewclaw would have been a visible feature of the live animal, even when covered with flesh and fur.
This sabertooth was described by the Swedish paleontologist Werdelin in 2003 from the fossil site of Lothagam in Kenya. The holotype is a nearly complete skeleton first discovered in 1992 by a team led by M. Leakey (Leakey and Harris 2003), although back then it was not known what kind of carnivore the skeleton belonged to. Several bones were found eroding out of a cliff side, the team delayed more complete excavation until the next campaign. In 1993 a complete operation finally led to the extraction of a huge block of matrix containning the associated skeleton, which was revealed to be part of a sabertooth cat.
Skeleton top and reconstructed life appearance of Lokotunjailurus emagiratus, shoulder height: 90 cm
Book Sabertooth (Mauricio Anton)

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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