And then there was the most infamous cat of all, the sabertooth.

而另一个例子就是鲜为人知的剑齿虎。

These stripes serve to warn off most attackers, but perhaps the sabertooth is yet to learn exactly what they mean.

这些条纹用来警告大多数的捕猎者，但是这只剑齿虎似乎还没有意识到这些条纹的具体含义。

Well, there's been no shortage of theories about how sabertooths used their fangs.

好吧，关于剑齿虎如何使用尖牙的理论并不缺乏。

First things first, though - what does sabertooth actually mean?

不过，首先要做的是——剑齿虎到底是什么意思？

As famous as Smilodon is, it was only the last and largest of the great sabertooths.

与剑齿虎一样出名，它只是最后一种也是最大的剑齿虎。

Technically speaking, a sabertooth is simply any animal with extremely elongated canine teeth.

从技术上讲，剑齿虎就是任何具有极长犬齿的动物。

So from their own, separate starting points, the nimravids, the barbourofelids, and the true cats each wound up with its own type of sabertooth species.

因此， 从它们各自不同的起点出发，猎豹科动物、巴氏猫科动物和真正的猫科动物都以自己的剑齿虎物种类型结束。

But when we say " sabertooth" , usually we're talking about the mammals who used their teeth not just to show off, but to slice and dice their prey.

但当我们说“剑齿虎” 时，通常我们指的是哺乳动物， 它们不仅用牙齿炫耀，而且用牙齿将猎物切成薄片。

And over the eons, saberteeth have also shown up in herbivores like the strange, horned Uintatherium, primates like lemurs and baboons, and about 4 million years ago in the Pacific Northwest, there was even a species of sabertooth salmon.

千百年来，剑齿虎也出现在食草动物身上，比如奇怪的、有角的 Uintatherium， 灵长类动物， 比如狐猴和狒狒，大约 400 万年前， 在太平洋西北部，甚至出现了一种剑齿鲑鱼。