I was wondering if we had any knowledge about what patterns saber-tooth fur might have had, or what was most likely. I like being able to draw stuff as close to what we know as possible and am looking for some help, thanks!
The Dingonek is an aquatic/semi-aquatic African cryptid believed by cryptozoologists to be a descendant of African saber-toothed cats (if it was real). This is the path taken in the book Cryptozoologicon. IIRC the author plays it up that the dingonek (Dingonek odobenomimus) hunts land animals like antelope and the like. But the art above shows the dingonek to have flippers like pinnipeds. It is believed that saber-tooths used their strong front limbs to grapple prey items and pin them down under their weight before delivering a killing bite to the throat. How would this hypothetical dingonek hunt land animals if it has no way to grab ahold of them? Alternatively, the book also suggests that it feeds on fish which would be more reasonable for the body plan.
The debate of whether or not the saber-toothed cat (smilodon fatalis) was social or not was always controversial but the general opinion favors a wolf-like pack system. Supporting evidence includes: the lack of sexual dimorphism, the high amount of individuals recovered from the Rancho la Brea tar pits (at least 2,100), injures so severe that it is believed the cats could not survive without assistance and the orientation of several smilodon skeletons around a single herbivore. Everything made sense and so, I was also a pack-hunter believer, but then a discovery in coastal Ecuador punched a hole in my beliefs. It was the discovery of what I dub the "smilodon siblings". It was the skeleton of 3 smilodon fatalis, one of which was an adult, likely the mother of the other 2 skeletons which were of 2 year old cats inferred to be siblings due to both of them sharing a rare p3 molar in their jaw.
The family of saber-tooths was believed to have all died together in some kind of catastrophic event (maybe a landslide?) and this then begs the question....where's the rest of the pack? It surprises me that absolutely no one has brought this up, but why would only this single mother and her two twins be the only ones buried in what was supposed to be a pack hunting cat? Does this mean smilodon was solitary? Despite the evidence, there is no definitive proof that this cat was a social hunter as everything that could support sociality could be argued against. The cats could possibly live through injures that were "too severe" by just drinking water and would be able to heal fast enough before starvation. Scavenging also likely played a role in keeping injured cats alive.
The great number of individuals recovered from Rancho la Brea means quite literally nothing in speculating its social behavior as known social species, such as gray wolves, are rare in comparison. The non-pack forming golden eagle are also quite common from the tar pits (over 1,000 individuals) and to me, this demonstrates that RLB is a better indicator of preferred habitat than social behavior. The tar itself is a great preserver of fossil as the bones look like they are from animals who died only a few years ago but an issue with tar pits is that you can't tell when the animals got stuck since its not laid down in sediments, meaning bone orientation does not work either, as you cannot tell if the cats around the herbivore were a pack or each died individually going after the same struggling herbivor
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