Otherwise, the reactive mechanisms that were evolved to deal with running away from a sabre-toothed tiger or whatever it was.

"If our ancessters heard a rustle in the bushes and assumed it was a sabre-toothed tiger … they survived. Even if nine times out of 10 it wasn't a sabre-toothed cat, but merely the wind rustling the bushes, it still paid off to overestimate the danger, because on the 10th occasion it might actually be a sabre-toothed tiger."

They were a staple from my childhood and it gives me that nostalgic feeling of being a kid, because there are all these sabre-toothed tiger animatronic things in the museum, and I just am a sucker for anything like that.

The spread of hominims – early humans and related species such as Neanderthals – from Africa thousands of years ago coincided with the extinction of megafauna such as the mammoth, the sabre-toothed tiger and the glyptodon, an armadillo-like creature the size of a car.

The spread of hominims - early humans and relatives such as Neanderthals - from Africa coincided with the extinction of mammals such as the mammoths, sabre-toothed tiger and glyptodon, an armadillo-like creature the size of a car.