Pack of Saber-Toothed Predators Thrived as Other Species Perished in Extinction Event

• A new saber-toothed species in South Africa challenges the idea that large predators always die out first during mass extinctions.
• The discovery provides insight into the dynamics of the Permian-Triassic extinction, which wiped out most life on Earth at the time and could inform how today's ecological crises unfold.
• The saber-toothed beasts, called gorgonopsians, were mammal-like reptiles that fed on large herbivores that survived the extinction.
• The new species, Inostrancevia africana, became dominant just before most life went extinct during global warming that spanned hundreds of thousands of years.
• The gorgonopsians and the rest of their ecosystem ultimately perished in the mass extinction.

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