[Animals] This was the prehistoric felines that dominated the Earth for millions of years

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From Eurasia to present-day North America, these were the 3 prehistoric felines that dominated the planet with their hunting skills.
Prehistory is the longest period in the existence of the Earth. As such, it overflowed for millennia into predatory species that no longer roam our planet today. Among the most lethal and assertive to hunt, prehistoric felines were found. Here we describe the most impressive of them, for their dimensions, lethality and survivability.

How were the felines in Prehistory?
The Ice Age was characterized by the presence of the so-called megafauna. That is, a large number of wild animals such as mammoths and big cats, among others. These animals have always impressed humans, not only because of their rarity (since they are now extinct), but also because they have unique characteristics that make them representative of the history of nature on our planet.

The following are the 3 prehistoric cats that dominated Eurasia to present-day North America:

Smilodon is an extinct genus of felids, which are commonly known as "saber-toothed cats". It formerly inhabited what are now the grasslands of the western United States until about 10,000 years ago. Three different species are known from this genus: Smilodon fatalis, Smilodon po[CENSORED]tor and Smilodon gracilis.

The Smilodon fatalizes the best known and studied species, due to the fact that more than 3,000 fossilized skeletons of this animal are preserved at Rancho La Brea in California. This cat weighed between 300 and 500 kilograms, and fed on large mammals such as bison, young mammoths and sloths. This diet earned him one of his most distinctive characteristics: his sharp fangs up to 20 cm in length.

The Smilodon coexisted with human groups. Their extinction is attributed mainly to hunting and because they did not adapt to a change in diet after the disappearance of large herbivores, such as mammoths.

Panthera blytheae, the oldest of the prehistoric cats

The Panthera blytheae is an extinct species. It lived almost 6 million years ago, making it the oldest known species of the genus. Little is known about this species and its habits, as only one fossil skull of this species has been found so far in the Tibet region. Until 2010, the year researchers made the discovery, the oldest remains of big cats were almost 4 million years old. According to existing records, this prehistoric feline bears similarities to the snow leopard.

The cave lion or Panthera spelaea is an extinct species that lived throughout the region from what is now Europe to Asia, as well as in North America. In 2015, two fossilized cave lion cubs were found in the Siberian steppe. This allowed dating its antiquity between 25 thousand and 50 thousand years.

Like other big cats, the cave lion fed on herbivores such as mammoths, bison, reindeer or deer. Its disappearance coincides with that of the end of the Quaternary period, when most of the megafauna species of the ice age disappeared. It is also attributed to the coexistence with humans who hunted these cats.

https://www.ngenespanol.com/animales/asi-fueron-los-felinos-prehistoricos-que-dominaron-la-era-de-hielo/