Getting long in the tooth.

Today, I find myself unexpectedly 69 years older than I was when I was born. Now, how on earth did that happen? Sadly, it does mean that I am getting a little longer in the tooth, but not quite as long-toothed as this fine fellow.

This is the skull of a Sabre-tooth, extinct, cat-like carnivores characterised by their large upper blade-like canine teeth. Sabre-toothed cats existed from the Eocene through to the Pleistocene Epoch (55.8 million to 11,700 years ago). The best known species is this one, the sabre-toothed tiger Smilodon fatalis, quite unrelated to modern tigers they roamed North America and Europe from 23 to 2.6 million years ago. The scientific name roughly translates as fatal, carving knife tooth.