Thylacosmilus is a very interesting creature. It looked like the famous saber-toothed cats, but it was actually a marsupial, which means it is a close relative of kangaroos. This ferocious-looking animal probably had a pouch in which it carried its young.[1]
Thylacosmilus lived in North America about eight million years ago when it was still separated from South America by water. There were no members of the cat family in North America, so it is interesting that nature found a way to recreate a very successful design using the types of animals that already existed in that area. Once the land bridge between North and Central America formed, many of the marsupials gave way to placental mammals that filled the same ecological niche.[1]
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Wikipedia has a more detailed and comprehensive article on Thylacosmilus |
Jurassic Park Franchise
Thylacosmilus does not appear in the Jurassic Park novels or films. It does appear on the Jurassic Park Institute page and the game Jurassic Park: Builder.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Jurassic Park Institute, Dinopedia/Thylacosmilus. Link.