No, and that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make. That’s not what the quote means. The quote means “For the first time in history we’ve studied the physical appearance (or the cadaveric finding* ) of an animal we have had evidence for decades that was too different from any living animal today”
*"Appearance " might mean physical appearance or the event of finding the corpse, I’m not sure to which of the two they refer. That wasn’t your question though, I just needed to clarify.
But is this cub the first time in history those types of features have been studied? We’ve known about saber-toothed cats for decades.
No, and that’s precisely the point I’m trying to make. That’s not what the quote means. The quote means “For the first time in history we’ve studied the physical appearance (or the cadaveric finding* ) of an animal we have had evidence for decades that was too different from any living animal today”
*"Appearance " might mean physical appearance or the event of finding the corpse, I’m not sure to which of the two they refer. That wasn’t your question though, I just needed to clarify.