In a just-released cut of the Eternals 2021, Sprite during her visit to the museum Sersi and Dane Whitman are working at asserts that the fossil that humans call that of a saber-toothed tiger is actually a Deviant's.
@ Eternals. Theaters, Disney+ (12.01.2022).
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This deleted shot seems to be from the early scenes in the movie - on the day when Deviants suddenly appear and chase after Sersi.
Sprite has a "small talk" with Dane, and confirms a fossil on display at the museum was Deviant's. Dane - who still thinks Sprite is a naive and difficult child - tries to explain that it is a fossil of a Smilodon saber-toothed tiger (2.5 million years - 10,000 years ago).
It can be inferred from Sprite's information: the prehistoric beasts that once lived on Earth became extinct because of (or thanks to) the Eternals - and that was a favorable condition for humanity to evolve and develop into their top in the food chain on Earth.
Sprite also points to the statue of the goddess Athena (in Greek mythology) and states it has nothing to do with the real character, adding that she should be called Thena instead of Athena (remove the A), and Thena's spear was made of cosmic energy, not iron.
Sprite seems not to support the idea of Eternal Sersi falling in love with a human like Dane, so the thousands-year-old childish lady tries to sabotage Sersi-Dane relationships. Spirte tells Dane that Sersi has just broken up with her boyfriend (Ikaris) for only ... 1 century (so she still hasn't stopped being in love with her ex) and that Sersi's ex-boyfriend is "hot and he can fly".
Later, to cover this up with Dane, Sersi explains to Dane that her that her ex-boyfriend was a pilot (should be able to fly). That's it!
