Saber-tooth surprise: Fossils redraw picture of the fearsome big cat

Hundreds of teeth pulled from the La Brea tar pits in California are revising our image of this icon of the Ice Age. Until about 10,000 years ago, the saber-tooth cat Smilodon fatalis was a fearsome predator in what is now the American West. More than 3,000 fossilized cats have been pulled from the …