interview with the Wiesbaden-based science writer Ernst Probst author of a paperback book about saber-toothed cats
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Question: Mr. Probst, how did you get the idea, a Paperback writing about saber tooth tigers?
Answer: During the research for my pocket of cave lion, I came again and again for clues about the simultaneous occurrence of lions from the ice age and saber tooth tigers. I also live in a region where about 600,000 years ago hunted lions large saber-toothed tiger, and findings of the Mosbacher Sanden from Wiesbaden near my home.
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question: Where are the saber-tooth tigers in the area of Wiesbaden?
Answer: The fossils from the Mosbach-Sanden in Wiesbaden are from the saber-toothed tiger-type Homotherium crenatidens. This saber-toothed tiger had a shoulder height of up to 1.10 meters and a total length including a short tail of up to 1.90 meters. Males are meant up to 400 kilograms have been difficult. In the case of Mosbacher Sanden are alluvial deposits, which are named after the former village Mosbach between Wiesbaden and Biebrich.
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question: What are the sites of saber tooth tigers of the ice age is still in Germany?
Answer: saber tooth tigers of the genus Homotherium you know from Untermaßfeld at Meiningen and Voigtstedt in the Harz Mountains (Thuringia), Neuleiningen at Green City (Rheinland-Pfalz), Mauer near Heidelberg and Steinheim an der Murr (Baden-Württemberg), Randers field near Würzburg ( Bavaria). These finds are two different sized species of Homotherium allocated. The older and larger species lived until about 300,000 years ago and is called Homotherium crenatidens, the smaller and younger species existed then, and is called Homotherium latidens. The latter is known from Steinheim an der Murr.
* Question: What were the big cats there during the ice age about 600,000 years ago in Germany?
Answer: Judging by the finds from the Mosbach-Sanden in Wiesbaden, lived apart from the saber tooth tiger Homotherium crenatidens also huge Mosbacher lion (Panthera leo spelaea), European jaguars (Panthera onca gombaszoegensis) and cheetah (Acinonyx pardinensis). Mosbacher was the lion with a total length of up to 3.60 meters, the largest lion in Germany and Europe. He was surpassed only by the American Cave Lion (Panthera leo atrox) between about 100,000 and 11,700 years by about 10 centimeters in length. By a finding from Mauer near Heidelberg, we know that about 600,000 years ago in Germany, leopard (Panthera pardus sickenbergi) existed. At that time prevailed in Germany as climatic conditions in Africa today. In the Rhine river swimming horses and lived on its banks elephants, rhinos, big cats and monkeys.
* Question: What big cats had to fear the saber-toothed tiger Homotherium crenatidens?
Answer: a fight with a grown Mosbacher had a lion, even the largest saber-toothed tiger certainly no chance. From the giant Mosbacher lions were around 300,000 years ago, the somewhat smaller cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea) shows that were still slightly larger than today's lions in Africa.
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Question: In the literature we read today, one part of saber-toothed tigers, the other part of saber-toothed cats. What is the reason?
Answer: In the past they spoke only of saber-toothed tigers. But then some scientists want that designation no longer used the term "saber-toothed cats. For some time, draw a line between Saber-toothed cats and dagger toothed cats. In layman this seems very confusing, especially as some scientists still talk about saber tooth tigers. In my experience may lay with the term dagger toothed cats much.
* Question: what time the earliest known saber-toothed tiger in Germany?
Answer: The oldest remains of saber-tooth tigers in Germany are attributable to the nature Machairodus aphanistus from the Miocene some 10 million years ago. This drove the once great-Rhein Rheinhessen, as findings from Eppelsheim and on Wissberg in Gau-Weinheim in Rhineland-Palatinate show, but also in the region of Baden-Melchingen Würrtemberg. The saber-toothed tiger Machairodus of Ur-Rhine in 1833 first described by the Darmstadt scholar Johann Jakob Kaup scientifically. A contemporary of Machairodus aphanistus was only half as large dagger-toothed cat Paramachairodus ogygius, which occurred in several sites in Germany to light. About Paramachairodus ogygius knew for a long time not much before complete skeletons have been discovered in Spain. Ten million years ago lived the great-Rhine in Germany for at least three species of great apes and elephants and Rhine-bizarre-looking krallenfüßige ungulates.
In Dorn-Dürkheim (Rheinhessen) has the remains of saber-toothed tigers (Machairodus aphanistus) and dagger-toothed cats (Paramachairodus ogygius, Paramacharodus orientalis) excavated from the Miocene about 8.5 million years ago. At that time Germany had been no more apes.
The saber-toothed tigers and dagger toothed cats from the ice age in Germany, the approximately 1 million years old fossils from Untermaßfeld at Meiningen in Thuringia, the geologically oldest finds. They come from a warm period in which existed in Germany, hippos, cheetahs and pumas.
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Science writer Ernst Probst published 2009, paperback books "cave lions", "saber-toothed cats" and "The Cave". He has written the pocket books "The Ur-Rhine" "Records of ancient times" and "records of primitive man." These titles are published in "GRIN for academic texts". http://www.grin.com/e-book/127539/saebelzahnkatzen
