Smilodon Temporal range: Pleistocene
Smilodon fatalis skeleton: National Museum of Natural History, Washington DC.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Felidae
Subfamily:	†Machairodontinae
Genus:	†Smilodon Lund, 1842
Species
†Smilodon fatalis; †Smilodon gracilis; †Smilodon populator

Smilodon was a genus of saber-toothed cat. There were three species.Smilodon gracilis (or S. fragilis) was the ancestral, smaller, species (2.5 to 0.5 million years ago).

Smilodon populator (1 mya to 10 kya) was a large, heavy species from eastern South America. It was 1.2 m high at the shoulder, 2.1 m (83 in) long on average. With an estimated weight of 220 to 400 kg, it was among the heaviest known felids. Its upper canines reached 28 cm (11 in) and protruded up to 17 cm (6.7 in) out of the upper jaw.

Smilodon fatalis (or S. californicus; 1.6 mya to 10,000 years ago) was the famous cat known from the Rancho La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. The tar, a bit like asphalt, has yielded about a million bones of late Pleistocene mammals, of which 162,000 bones are from Smilodon, representing perhaps 1200 individuals. The cat was about the size of a female lion, but weighed more, perhaps 200 kg. It was about 1 metre tall at the shoulders.