That's an interesting paper. I'm imagining also possibilites of it being a giant mammalian woodpecker (i.e. using the tusks to rip open logs after insect larvae) or a sort of anteater (i.e. using the tusks to rip open temite mounds).June 26, 2020: Thylacosmilus atrox, an extinct marsupial that roamed what is now South America between 9 and 3 million years ago (Neogene period), was not the ecological analogue of saber-tooth cats, and likely did not use its impressive canines to dispatch its prey, according to new research led by University of Bristol scientists.
Also interesting news for me was a little snippet within the paper (near the end, where it talks about shoe-horning extinct species into the roles of modern ecological equivalents) about how sthenurines, the extinct giant kangaroos of Australia, actually walked rather than hopped. I need to find those papers and read them.
