How sabertoothed felids have evolved their iconic morphology remains unclear because of the patchy fossil record of early machairodontines. Batallones localities in the Madrid region (Spain) have the potential to clarify this as two sites have yielded hundreds of fossils of the early machairodontines Promegantereon ogygia and Machairodus aphanistus. Previous analyses suggested that these two sites are not contemporaneous and a morphological drift between cavities was described for these two species; characterizing intraspecific variability is thus important to better understand the evolution of machairodontines. To tackle this issue, we modelled 62 felid mandibles in 3D using a laser scanner. We applied 3D geometric morphometrics (3D GM) and linear morphometrics on these models to test for differences in populations and to better characterize the morphology of early machairodontines. Both linear measurements and 3D data reveal an absence of morphological changes in mandible shape between the two sites. Batallones machairodontines are closer to felines than to other, more derived machairodontines in mandibular morphology, suggesting the existence of rapid shift in the mandibular shape between primitive and derived members of the clade. Our analysis did not reveal any allometric relationship between the overall shape of the mandible when studied with 3D GM and body size. Finally, we reveal a previously overlooked diversity in felid mandibular condyles, with machairodontines having much larger and medially inclined condyles.

由于早期马氏牙齿的化石记录不完整，因此剑齿猫科动物如何进化出其标志性形态尚不清楚。马德里地区（西班牙）的Batallones地区有可能澄清这一点，因为两个地点已产生了数百种早期玛氏巨牙龙Promegantereon ogygia和Machairodus aphanistus的化石。。先前的分析表明这两个位置不是同时的，并且描述了这两个物种的腔之间的形态漂移。因此，表征种内变异性对于更好地了解马氏牙齿的演变很重要。为了解决此问题，我们使用激光扫描仪对62个猫下颌骨进行了3D建模。我们在这些模型上应用了3D几何形态计量学（3D GM）和线性形态计量学，以测试种群差异并更好地表征早期马氏牙齿的形态。线性测量和3D数据均显示两个部位之间的下颌骨形态没有形态变化。在下颌形态上，Batallones machairodontines比其他更接近的machairodontines更接近猫科动物，这表明在进化枝的原始成员和衍生成员之间存在快速下颌形状的转变。我们的分析未显示在使用3D GM研究时，下颌骨的整体形状与体型之间存在任何异形关系。最后，我们揭示了先前被忽视的猫下颌fe突的多样性，其中颌前突的larger突较大且向内倾斜。