ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-12-2022, 09:26 PM)Matias Wrote:

(09-10-2022, 06:38 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: The glacial period was rather short that lasted for about couple of thousand years.

So this Bornean giant was rather a temporary visitor or a short term resident?

Guess by the end of glacial period, most giant tigers might have been retreated back to the Asian mainland.

Everything should start by reading the article Dr. Shaheer Sherani, and the key point would be the dating of the mandibular fossil. The Ngandong tiger (no further depth) has its fossils dated to approximately 190,000 years ago on the island of Java, which places it very far from the MIS 2 time period. Recall that the last glacial maximum occurred between 24,000 and 18,000 years ago – period when the Malay mainland and other islands were connected to Borneo (Sundaland). So, any prospect of the presence of this tiger in Borneo in MIS 2 is based on the veracity of the material collected and its undisputed dating. Moving forward, has anyone read the article?

In the general case of felines, the insular environment directs the movement in body reduction. Exceptions are possible and the range of competing prey and predators and other ecological forces may have driven evolution towards gigantism. It is not necessary to have “periodic glacial maximums” to have a landscape of these islands very different from what they are today, since the constant glacial period moved the tidal cycle largely throughout the Pleistocene, bringing reductions in sea level by several tens of meters compared to what we currently have, presenting corridors/passages, as well as the territorial extension of the islands were much larger. However, Borneo only emerged from geographic isolation when this greater connection took place.

So, it is not a mistake to consider that the movement of animal life, including early humans (Erectus, Floresiensis and even Denisovans) was done with some regularity. As we know practically nothing of its time scale (arrival, stay, departure), it is not possible to distinguish whether Ngandong Tiger was a visitor occasioned by the wide swath of land (Sundaland) or a resident of multiple generations after Borneo's return to geographic isolation ( island environment). We have been in the Pleistocene ice age for 2,600,000, with some periods of glaciation lasting up to hundreds of thousands of years, interspersed with tens of thousands of years of warming (interglaciation). This change is a constant and its slowness is what provides animals with their adaptation. Simply put, I suggest that Ngandong tiger was the product of a time when its catchment area was not geographically isolated for long. Consequently, he was a long-term resident of the other islands and an occasional visitor to Borneo. Excluding this large island, does it appear that there is no fossil record of it in MIS 2 on the other islands of Sunda?

Could this specimen found in Borneo also be a continental Pleistocene tiger?

Are there morphological differences between the continental Pleistocene tiger and Ngandong?

Wouldn't it be the same tiger surviving in different environments?

Morphologically speaking, the giant Bornean tiger belonged to the southern type of the continental Pleistocene tiger.

However, according to @tigerluver, this tiger got proportionally thinner canine teeth like the Ngandong tiger, unlike their northern cousins from China who possessed the unmatched dentition among the contemporary Pantherines.

Maybe the proportionally thinner canine teeth could be an indication of the admixture from the Sunda tiger? Reply