close
Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Nov;308(11):2913-2923.
doi: 10.1002/ar.25461. Epub 2024 Apr 23.

The scimitar-cat Homotherium from the submerged continental shelf of the Gulf Coast of Texas

John A Moretti  1 , Deanna Flores  2   3 , Christopher J Bell  1 , Will Godwin  4 , Adam Hartstone-Rose  5 , Patrick J Lewis  3
Affiliations

The scimitar-cat Homotherium from the submerged continental shelf of the Gulf Coast of Texas

John A Moretti et al. Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2025 Nov.

Abstract

The machairodontine felid Homotherium achieved a global geographic distribution throughout much of the Pleistocene. Accordingly, that large carnivore is important for understanding patterns of community composition. We report on a new record of Homotherium based on a fragmentary premaxilla-maxilla discovered on McFaddin Beach, Texas, along the Gulf of Mexico. Skeletal remains of extinct, Pleistocene vertebrates accumulate on McFaddin Beach. Those fossils appear to originate from submerged deposits on the continental shelf in the Gulf of Mexico, an area that was subaerially exposed in the Late Pleistocene during glacial intervals. Marine erosion and transport altered the externally visible morphology of the current specimen, obscuring and/or damaging taxonomically informative details of the preserved dentition. However, high-resolution X-ray computed tomography revealed diagnostic portions of the unerupted crown of an upper canine within its alveolus. The serrated edges of the canine combined with the position of the incisors demonstrate that the specimen from McFaddin Beach represents a species of Homotherium. That specimen is the latest in a larger sample of Homotherium in Texas that spans most of the Pliocene-Pleistocene. This is the first occurrence of Homotherium from the continental shelf of the Gulf Coast. That landscape may have formed a broad subtropical Gulf Coast corridor that facilitated the dispersal of Neotropical taxa along the coast between Texas and Florida. The associated fauna from McFaddin Beach contains Neotropical mammals common to southern Texas and Florida and indicates that Homotherium was a member of the fauna inhabiting the Gulf Coast corridor during the Late Pleistocene.

Keywords: Neotropical; Pleistocene; biogeography; continental shelf; gulf coastal corridor.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Akersten, W. A. (1970). Red light local fauna (Blancan) of the love formation, southeastern Hudspeth County, Texas. Bulletin of the Texas Memorial Museum, 20, 1–53.
    1. Antón, M., Salesa, M. J., Galobart, A., & Tseng, Z. J. (2014). The Plio‐Pleistocene scimitar‐toothed genus Homotherium Fabrini, 1890 (Machairodontinae, Homotherini): Diversity, palaeogeography and taxonomic implications. Quaternary Science Reviews, 96, 259–268.
    1. Barnett, R., Westbury, M. V., Sandoval‐Velasco, M., Vieira, F. G., Jeon, S., Zazula, G., Martin, M. D., Ho, S. Y. W., Mather, N., Gopalakrishnan, S., Ramos‐Madrigal, J., de Manuel, M., Zepeda‐Mendoza, M. L., Antunes, A., Baez, A. C., De Cahsan, B., Larson, G., O'Brien, S. J., … Gilbert, M. T. P. (2020). Genomic adaptations and evolutionary history of the extinct scimitar‐toothed cat, Homotherium latidens. Current Biology, 30, 1–8.
    1. Baskin, J., Gervais, P. D., & Gervais, C. J. (2020). A late Pleistocene capybara (Rodentia, Caviidae, Hydrochoerinae) from near Houston, Texas, USA, with a brief review of North American fossil capybaras. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, 167, 57–68.
    1. Bell, C. J. (2000). Biochronology of North American microtine rodents. In J. S. Noller, J. M. Sowers, & W. R. Lettis (Eds.), Quaternary geochronology: Methods and applications (pp. 379–406. AGU Reference Shelf 4). American Geophysical Union.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources