The biggest defeater to this argument I can see is that smilodon as a genus reached is most ”successful” state in Populator. Which was obviously not hunting camelids, from what I’ve read the cats made it down south long before the ancestors of stuff like llamas and alpacas. Those were competitively excluded by the native notoungulates and litopterns, which isotopic analysis shows populator were eating in fairly vast quantities, the largest smilodon found seemed to be eating almost exclusively Toxodon and various ground sloths, which were themselves Bison sized animals of about a ton, and even heavier built and lower to the ground in center of mass, and the mammalian attempt at reconstructing therozinosaurus.

To handle prey like that they obviously had to have a very significant gape, beyond what you’re surprising here, and all the credible research I’ve looked at indicates a 110-120 degree gape for fatalis and populator, which is quite a significant bump over the 90 you posit.

You’re correct that early paleoartists got it wrong with the downward stab depiction, and many lazy and/or underfunded museums still present that, but we had this figured out in the 90’s. The machairodonts (not “macrocharodonts” by the way, it’s not “big shark tooth” it’s “dagger tooth”) were pinning their prey with oversized and hypertrophied arms to deliver windpipe/neck bites to any number of animals, not just camelids. The homotherium-line cats were doing this by running prey into exhaustion as long range pursuit predators, the megantereon-line cats were doing it through shock and brute force off of a successful ambush.

If anything there’s better evidence that tooth size scales better with general prey size than specifically camelids, especially considering the African and Asian sabre-cats as well as American homotherium seemed to reach their largest tooth sizes at around the same time S. Populator and Fatalis were reaching their respective apexes during the ice age glacial minimum when ALL given prey species were larger.

They were specialist predators, but not just for camelids, for any macrofauna of reasonable (read: sub-proboscidian size) mass. It doesn’t matter how big you are, if you can be knocked off balance and your carotid artery punctured, you’ll bleed out all the same, bigger teeth just let you do that to successively bigger animals.

They didn't articulate t-rex upright to look scarier, they did that because they didn't know the bones articulated as well as we do now.

My cat eats canned food, it licks the gravy and leaves the chunks.
It's teeth are only used to encourage me to open the can further.

I used to work at a local museum. I was always impressed by their statue/sculpture of the Saber Toothed cat. It was in a low, stalking posture and was purported to be the actual size of a Smilodon. It was huge. Kids used to climb on its back and straddle it like a horse. It could easily hold 4 kids. It was indeed very muscular. It's head, neck, chest, shoulders and front legs were huge. It left quite an impression.

I haven’t got a smilodon theory, so I can’t be wrong.

Wouldn’t it be possible for a Smilodon to do a lot of damage without even opening its mouth?

if it can't stab with it's mouth open why open the mouth? It looks like the teeth are long enough to stab and put without opening the jaw

As far as I know, the largest is the 'Smilodon Populator' not the 'Smilodon Fatalis'.

Also, I have to come back and add:  This theory could be expressed as, giant cats smoked camels thousands of years ago.

Any fool such as me can see that saber tooth cats hunted rabbits which goes far in explaining why a bunny has never been found near a Smilodon fossil. They were that good.

No, your big reveal should be that Sabertooth cats were actually just herbivores with huge canines, like dicynodonts.

I believe that conclusion of Todd Wheeler in "Experimental Paleontology of the Scimitar-tooth and Dirk-tooth killing bites" was a bit different: simulated  Smilodon skull mounted on Bobcat (they called it Robocat) was able to open mouth wide enough to bite bison neck. However, the sabers were not sharp enough to bite trough the hide "unless there is a relative motion between cutting edge of upper canine and the hide"

The skull, truthfully…reminds me of a Naked Mole Rat. How freaky!

As far as I'm concerned you nailed it man. I can finally sleep peacefully at night without this huge issue ruining my every night's rest. Thank you!

This take, while interesting, is a little dismissive of the decades of fine, multidisciplinary research that brought us to the current understanding of this species.

I also note several important inaccuracies regarding jaw anatomy and function that diminish the value of key arguments made here:

Adult teeth could not grow back if broken. Milk teeth of juveniles were replaced over the course of several years, but not adult canines - just one pair of those only.

The interpretation offered here regarding a more limited gape angle fails to acknowledge that the temporomandibular joint of the living animal would not have been bone-on-bone articulation. This joint was almost certainly capped with synovial membrane and fibrocartilagenous material, and also supported by strong elastic ligaments, such as the lateral mandibular ligament, that could likely accommodate wider gapes. Experts of mammalian jaw anatomy account for these soft, unpreserved tissues when interpreting the potential capabilities of extinct species from dry bone remains.

There's no reason to think that smilodon wasn't feeding on camellids; however, ecological interractions are rarely black and white. Predators will often target the young, sick, and weak of many animals, even if outside their typical food range. Taking advantage of an easier meal is related to a principal referred to as Optimal Foraging Theory. Dismissing such a fundamental aspect of predator ecology undermines the credibility of other points made here 💀

The best scientific video I've ever seen regarding the Smilodon. I just subscribed to your channel. Way to go!

The teeth fit between the paddles as long as the cat is the right size, the prey is the right size, and the neck isn't turned or turning, and the aim is perfect enough to not hit bone. Not saying the theory is wrong, but this looks more like a coincidence that happens to fit the two models in your inventory rather than coevolution.

I’m back! I loved that you showed the evolutionary arms race too, I love it when paleontological evidence backs up the theories.

It’s just insane at how much disinformation exists but is assumed to be right.

I do love the fact videos like these exist to show knowledge isn’t static, it’s constantly changing and updating with new information.

What an absolute gem of a video. Thank you for this.

My childhood curiosity has been satiated! Great video.