LIFESTYLE

The sabertooths lived in social groups like the prides of modern lions, rather than living as lone hunters like modern tigers. Their pack-style behavior is evidenced by the groups found at the La Brea tar pits and other locations which died together hunting a large trapped animal. Like lions, they would have heard the cries of injured or trapped animals and would have also become trapped as they responded to the cries in the tar pits. Paleontologists have also discovered healed wounds and crippling disease such as arthritis on Smilodon skeletons that point to the fact that the group cared for the injured and aged of the group who would not have been able to hunt on their own.