The Llanos Region, also called the Bolivian Lowlands, is the general denomination of the Bolivian lowlands, encompassing the north, northeast and east of Bolivia. This region covers 64% of Bolivian territory, making it the largest region in the country with a surface area of 703,040 km². It is located to the north and northeast of the Eastern or Real mountain range, belonging to the Andes, and extends from the department of Pando through the north of the department of La Paz, the department of Beni, the department of Santa Cruz and through the Chaco in the departments of Tarija and Chuquisaca. That is, it covers the entire area from the foothills of the Andes to the Paraguay River, the lowest point in the country, with an average altitude of less than 400 m above sea level.


It is characterized for being a land of plains, covered by extensive jungles of Amazonian type and large lakes. In this region are the rivers of the Amazon basin and the Rio de la Plata from the country and neighboring countries such as the Mamoré River, the Beni River and lakes Rogagua and Rogaguado. It has an average annual temperature of 22 to 25 °C, reaching up to 40 °C. Most of the country's biodiversity is found here, as well as the most profitable arable land.

Within the region there are several geographical sub-regions, such as the Bolivian Amazon, the Moxos Plains, the Chiquitos Plains, the Bolivian Pantanal and the Bolivian Chaco.

Wikipedia

This thread will focus on the populations of Llanos de Moxos, Llanos de Chiquitos excluding Chaco, Pantanal and Amazonian forest areas which are covered in other threads.
The populations of jaguars in the Bolivian lowland grasslands and wetlands east of the Andes and south of the Amazon have been largely ignored by the scientific community so information on their morphology and specific ecology are greatly lacking compared to other populations. Footage of these jaguars is also very rare to come by due to the isolation degree of these eco-regions. Thankfully, tourism in the areas has spiked over the last year providing us with excellent images of these enigmatic but stunning jaguars.

Because these areas are very similar in geography and fauna to the Pantanal and the Orinoco Llanos, it is expected that the jaguars here will be non-dwarfed/large-bodied and thus similar in size to those from the Pantanal/Llanos as they all fall under the floodplain jaguar tier, as do those from the Upper Paraná wetlands and the Wet Chaco which includes the Iberá wetlands.



Wetlands in light green. The Beni Savanna, also known as Llanos de Moxos, covers the majority of the floodplain territory in Bolivia and is one of the largest flooded savannas on the continent.

Compilation of jaguars in Santa Cruz



Credits: Andres Novales, Pietro Rojas, and mr.reptile.sv.

Hello everyone I hope you are well. This thread is to ask you about two discrepancies that I have found while reviewing sources regarding the Amur tiger, specifically the Amur Tiger Program and the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Land of the Leopard" which, as I understand it, work directly with the species. concerned and handle all official records of the statistics collected. The Amur Tiger Program mentions verbatim that the heaviest tiger ever captured had an impressive 384kg, so my question is this: Why don't Slaght and Valvert take that mark into account? assuming that the PTA is the highest authority in this regard. The second issue is that the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Land of the Leopard" verbatim mentions that the historical average for Amur tigers has been estimated at 220kg. So I would like to ask you if you can imagine what sources they used to arrive at such a number? since it is too far from those proposed by Slaght and Valvert, equating it directly with the average of the Bengal tiger. I am attaching screenshots from the official websites. I await your answers and thank you very much in advance.

Hola chicos, espero que estén bien. Soy nuevo en este espacio pero estoy feliz de aprender como muchas personas. Me gustaría preguntarte sobre el verdadero peso y tamaño del tigre de Amur, ya que he visto varias publicaciones afirmando que el tamaño y peso de esta subespecie ha disminuido mucho, incluso por debajo de los 200kg. Pero para mi sorpresa, portales como la Sociedad Geográfica Rusa, el programa de conservación del presidente Putin o la Organización Mundial para la Conservación de Grandes Felinos mantienen sus estadísticas de peso en 300 kg. Mi duda surge ya que Russia WSC basa sus estadísticas en una muestra de población de menos de 100 individuos, unos 70 según su web oficial, y además afirman que todos han sido ejemplares en conflicto y en su mayoría casos muy jóvenes. Entonces mi pregunta es la siguiente. ¿Es válido asegurar que el tamaño y el peso del tigre de Amur han disminuido? Teniendo en cuenta que se ignoran casi 700 individuos que no han sido documentados, y de los cuales varios han sido vistos en cámaras trampa que pesan mucho más de 240kg, me atrevería a decir. Me gustaría preguntarte sobre el verdadero peso y tamaño del tigre de Amur, ya que he visto varias publicaciones afirmando que el tamaño y peso de esta subespecie ha disminuido mucho, incluso por debajo de los 200kg. Pero para mi sorpresa, portales como la Sociedad Geográfica Rusa, el programa de conservación del presidente Putin o la Organización Mundial para la Conservación de Grandes Felinos mantienen sus estadísticas de peso en 300 kg. Mi duda surge ya que Russia WSC basa sus medias en una muestra de menos de 100 ejemplares, unos 70 según su web oficial y que todos han sido ejemplares en conflicto y en la mayoría casos muy jóvenes. Entonces mi pregunta es la siguiente. ¿Es válido asegurar que el tamaño y el peso del tigre de Amur han disminuido? Teniendo en cuenta que se ignoran casi 700 ejemplares que no han sido documentados, y de los cuales se han visto varios en cámaras trampa que pesan mucho más de 240kg se atrevería a decir. Espero sus respuestas Gracias.

Hola a todos. Quisiera preguntarles si es posible que los datos sobre el tamaño y peso del tigre de amur publicados por la wcs, wwf o el centro de tigres de amur puedan tener inconsistencias o estén alterados a propósito. Digo esto porque parece que la mayoría de los datos tomados se hacen en primavera o verano cuando los tigres disminuyen su masa corporal, en segundo lugar porque la mayoría de los ejemplares analizados rondan los 3-4 años de edad, es decir, están lejos de su plenitud. desarrollo. , en tercer lugar porque la población oficial del censo se establece entre unos 60-70 ejemplares y en cuarto lugar que han sido manipulados como estrategia para restar interés a los furtivos por la zona. Muchas gracias.

English:
Hello everyone. I would like to ask you if it is possible that the data on the size and weight of the amur tiger published by the wcs, wwf or the amur tiger center may have inconsistencies or are altered on purpose. I say this because it seems that most of the data taken is done in spring or summer when tigers decrease their body mass, secondly because most of the specimens analyzed are around 3-4 years of age, that is, they are far from its fullness. development. , thirdly because the official population of the census is established between 60-70 specimens and fourthly that they have been manipulated as a strategy to reduce interest to poachers in the area. Thank you so much.

Hello guys,
mimicry or imitation general is such an important and fascinating part of nature and I would like to hear some interesting animals (apart from this video) that use mimicry that you heard of :)

Hello all, 

After messaging back and forth with Mr. Peter he suggested me to add these findings to the thread as well.

Firstly, there's a recent paper about extinction of Caspian tigers and information on how scientific bias doomed the survival of this formal ssp. Full article is aviliable via - https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....50191/full

Secondly, I wanted to add my recent findings regarding the size of this ssp. As you know (mentioned by mr.Peter as well) there is quite some variation on the size of turanian tiger speciemens. Here I add 2 photos of stuffed tigers acquired by Gustav Radde from his trip to South Caucasus (Lenkeran, Azerbaijan) in 1866. Later, Satunin gives the measuremnt of skins as follows: 283 cm (173 cm body+ 110 cm tail) and 254 cm (161 cm+93 cm tail). In the Museum there's a particullarly large caspian tiger skull from Bilesuvar (North of Lenkeran) with length of 36 cm according to Satunin, 1906.  I am adding the pictures of stuffed skins from 1866 and mentioned skull below.

Hello,

Here i would like to start a thread concerning the bears of the Mio-Pliocene period. In fact, we always speak about the bears of the pleistocene because some of them (Arctodus, Arctotherium, Ursus arctos priscus, Ursus ingressus) have reached the mythic mass up to 1000 kg and even more for the largest specimens. I confess it is really impressive for a carnivore but bears are not hypercarnivores like big cats or canids so maybe this is one of the reasons concerning their great size? I don't know.

But, there are other prehistoric bears which lived before the pleistocene period and some of them were probably very big. Here are some of them with measurements and references:

- Agriotherium africanum

Specimen PQ-L 45062 - Condylobasal length of the skull: 420 mm, zygomatic width: 305 mm. The zygomatic width is big, larger than almost all of the extinct big cats. I think that one skull of a very big male panthera atrox has a comparable width, maybe even a little bit larger, i am not sure. But in the same paper there is a skull of Arctodus which has a zygomatic width as much as 364 mm!!! No doubt that these bears could bit with a great power.
Specimen L50446 - Condylobasal length of the skull: 465 mm. The famous specimen of Arctodus PM 24880 had a condylobasal length around 422 mm and probably weighted at least 740kg to give you a brief comparison. And we are talking about bears which are not obese so imagine this bear in a zoo with a lot of food...

- Indarctos oregonensis

With a length of 362.54 mm, the huge mandible from Ft-40, Nebraska represents the largest mandible of all Indarctos and among the largest mandibles of all bears, rivaled only by the largest individuals of Ursus spelaeus (Baryshnikov 2007), Arctotherium angustidens (López et al. 2008) and “Agriotherium schneideri” (personal observation).

Specimen UCMP V22362, Indarctos oregonensis from the Rattlesnake bed: very large humerus (around 50 cm based on the scale bar, measured with Paint 3D) and extremely robust. 
The humerus is enormous, being larger than any living bear and representing the largest known humerus for the genus.
To give you some other comparisons: humerus of Ursus arctos gyas: 44,4 cm. What is the length of the largest humerus of extinct big cats please?

- Huracan

Complete crania permitting measurement of total length and condylobasal length are rare, but those have an average of 490 mm for cranial total length (n = 2) and 440 mm for condylobasal length (n = 4; table 5). However, complete mandibles are abundant, with a mean length of 318.5 mm (n = 8; table 11). Based on the ratios of 1.47 and 1.37 for cranial total length/ mandibular length and condylobasal length/mandibular length, respectively, from an individual associated cranium and mandible of AMNH F:AM 76005, the range of cranial total lengths and condylobasal lengths in this species are estimated at 411–553 mm and 383–515 mm, respectively.
There is a skull about 502.92 mm in length concerning Huracan coffeyi. (table 5). The largest mandible has an impressive size of 376.32 mm! (table 11)
H. coffeyi not only has a small width/length ratio as a result of relative elongation of the humerus, but the epicondyles also are distinctly weaker than those of Ursus, Arctodus, and Ailuropoda. The width/length ratio is distinctly smaller in H. coffeyi than in Ursus, Arctodus and Ailuropoda, but comparable to that of extant Panthera (Felidae) species, a large and relatively cursorial carnivore.
Together, these traits suggest that H. coffeyi was a cursorial animal, more so than any living bear, the extinct giant short-faced bear, and probably extant lions.

Even though H. coffeyi has a huge skull and very large teeth (probably the largest among all known bears, living and extinct, together with Ursus ingressus and Arctotherium angustidens), its postcranial bones are only slightly larger than those of Agriotherium africanum, are smaller than Indarctos oregonensis, and are distinctly smaller than those of the giant short-faced bear Arctodus.

An interesting citation concerning Arctodus: Well-developed humerus epicondyles and a wide range of ulna rotation support an inference that Arctodus was powerful and could subdue large prey, unlike the suggestion of Sorkin (2006)

Indarctos has a variable humerus morphology, although all Indarctos species are clearly distinguished from H. coffeyi in having an entepicondylar foramen. The type specimen of I. oregonensis is very robust, with expanded humerus epicondyles like those of Ursus (Merriam et al., 1916).

I have posted some data about large bears because large bears are popular. But of course the data concerning smaller bears are also interesting and are welcome.

References:

Fossil Bear from South Africa - 1977 - Q. B. Hendey.

References:
Coexistence of Indarctos and Amphimachairodus (Carnivora) in the Late Early Hemphillian of Florida, North America.

References:
New Fossil Giant Panda Relatives (Ailuropodinae, Ursidae): A Basal Lineage of Gigantic Mio-Pliocene Cursorial Carnivores - 2023.

Hello everyone,

I would like to know if someone has already made a mass evaluation using the GDI (Graphical Double Integration) technique and if so, with which program please? This technique seems quite good to my opinion and i would like to try myself.
Also, does someone know some tutorials online please?

I give you thanks.

What is the largest recorded Wild Tiger and a Wild Lion in scientific records ? Please give as much detail as possible.

I've seen this video https://youtube.com/shorts/dpGbXGs-2F4?feature=share a lot of times on many channels, I wonder what would be the weight of this Tiger. It's behind those cows and  its still looks so big, just by the looks of it, it seems like the biggest cat there is today.