Barbourofelis - Printable Version

Barbourofelis - Printable Version

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Barbourofelis - epaiva - 07-29-2017

Barbourofelis is an extinct genus of large, predatory, feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Barbourofelidae (false saber-tooth cats). The genus was endemic to North America during the Miocene until its extinction during the Pliocene, living from 13.6—5.3 Ma and existing for approximately 8.3 million years. First two pictures belong to Barbourofelis loveorum (Barbourofelis loveorum Baskin 1981) measurements head and body length excluding the tail 1,6 m, height at the shoulders 85 cm and estimated weight of 50 to 100 kg. Pictures 3 and 4 belong to the largest Barbourofelis Barbourofelis fricki (Barbourofelis fricki Schultz & Martin, 1970)
The largest species known as Barbourofelis fricki was living in North America, having reached the size of a modern lion, but was superior in weight, due to its unusually strong physique. It had a very robust constitution and largest individuals of B. fricki are thought to weight up to 300 kg. it had a height of 90 cm and estimated weight of 180 to 300 kg.

*This image is copyright of its original author

RE: Barbourofelis - epaiva - 07-29-2017

(07-29-2017, 12:10 AM)epaiva Wrote: Barbourofelis is an extinct genus of large, predatory, feliform carnivoran mammals of the family Barbourofelidae (false saber-tooth cats). The genus was endemic to North America during the Miocene until its extinction during the Pliocene, living from 13.6—5.3 Ma and existing for approximately 8.3 million years. First two pictures belong to Barbourofelis loveorum (Barbourofelis loveorum Baskin 1981) measurements head and body length excluding the tail 1,6 m, height at the shoulders 85 cm and estimated weight of 50 to 100 kg. Pictures 3 and 4 belong to the largest Barbourofelis Barbourofelis fricki (Barbourofelis fricki Schultz & Martin, 1970)
The largest species known as Barbourofelis fricki was living in North America, having reached the size of a modern lion, but has superior in weight, due to its unusually strong physique. It had a very robust constitution and largest individuals of B. fricki are thought to weight up to 300 kg. it had a height of 90 cm and estimated weight of 180 to 300 kg.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

@GrizzlyClaws

Do you know the measurements of B. Fricki upper fangs? They are huge

RE: Barbourofelis - GrizzlyClaws - 07-29-2017

I haven't studied them, but maybe around the size of the non-Smilodon sabertooth species.

RE: Barbourofelis - Polar - 07-30-2017

One thing I noticed, between Xenosmilus and Barbourofelis, is that Xenosmilus's shoulder blades seem to be drastically larger that that of Barbourofelis for the same skeletal size.

Barbourofelis also seems to be sleeker than Xenosmilus and also sleeker than most other saber-tooth cats, perhaps it had a more endurance-based hunting method. We know most Nimravids, unlike saber-tooths, were solitary hunters.

RE: Barbourofelis - epaiva - 08-09-2017

Barbourofelis fricki

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- Skeletal (top) and reconstructed life appearance of Barbourofelis fricki. The bones shown in blue are unknown and have been reconstructed on the basis of other barbourofelids or closely related carnivorans. Shoulder height: 90 cm.
- Skull and reconstructed life appearance of the head of Barbourofelis fricki.
- Skull of Barbourofelis fricki with the deep masseter muscles reconstructed according to the "histricomorph" hipothesis through the infraorbital foramen.
- Skull reconstruction of the masticatory musculature and reconstructed appearance of the head of Barbourofelis fricki. In the reconstruction of the musculature, masseter and temporalis muscles are shown in the conventional disposition.
taken from the book Sabertooth (Mauricio Anton)

RE: Barbourofelis - GuateGojira - 08-17-2017

Barbourofelis fricki was the largest of this predator family that evolved with forms similar to modern cats, however I do not believe that this "giant" was even near the 300 kg. Check this old comparison that I made, based in the information and books of Turner and Anton:

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As we can see, B. fricki was slightly smaller than modern Bengal-Amur tigers, and by extension, smaller than Smilodon fatalis, which probably weighed up to 280 kg. The bones of B. fricki are not as robust as S. fatalis, so definitely was a smaller animal, although with an impressive head, by any standard.

Interestingly, according with the old program "Paleoworld" from Discovery Channel (when Discovery was a REAL source of information...), this cat-like predator have a brain that was of the same size than the brain of an ocelot!

Here is an old representation from that particular tv show, the "Dawn of the cats":

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Here is the image of the B. fricki skull, the ocelot skull and the brain cast of both specimens, check the similar size:

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Ohhhhh, I miss the old days!

RE: Barbourofelis - tigerluver - 08-30-2017

B. fricki has some proximal long bones on record, however I could not find any sources that give their measurements. However, there is a good study on the cranial anatomy of the species (see attached).

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The skull here has a CBL of about 280 mm. From Baskin (2005, the largest B. loveorum skull has a CBL 239 mm. If we assume that this skull correlates with the largest humerus (281 mm) and femur (291 mm) of the sample size, this B. fricki would have a humerus of c. 330 mm and femur of c. 341 mm. Both of these are in frame the size of a small lion or tiger. If we account for the species' robusticity, it would be reasonalbe to infer that body mass-wise, B. fricki would overlap with modern lions and tigers.

RE: Barbourofelis - epaiva - 09-02-2017

Barbourofelis fricki skull in The Nebraska State Museum credit to Gary Staab

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RE: Barbourofelis - epaiva - 12-12-2017

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Taken from the book The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives (Alan Turner and Mauricio Anton)

RE: Barbourofelis - epaiva - 08-05-2019

Barbourofelis loveorum and Teloceras proterum at the Florida Museum of Natural History Fossil Hall at the University of Florida.
Teleoceras is an extint genus if grazing rhinoceros, it lived in North America and Egypt.
Credit to @evolution_soup

*This image is copyright of its original author

RE: Barbourofelis - GuateGojira - 08-06-2019

Link to the original document with the description of the large Barbourofelis fricki: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1089&context=museumbulletin

Download it fast, because we don't know how much time the links in Internet work. I had bad experiences with documents that now I lost.

Interesting is the fact that the Condylobasal length (298 mm.) of teh skull is larger than the greatest length, in this animal.

Greetings to all. Happy

RE: Barbourofelis - GuateGojira - 08-06-2019

More on this great cat-like animal. In this exibition they are using a real-sized Barbourofelis fricki! Check this out: https://journalstar.com/news/local/education/morrill-hall-project-bringing-smithsonian-to-the-prairie/article_74369d85-0c5d-5d9d-ab3a-bfa9be8a2967.html#8

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I think that with a skull of less than 300 mm in length, this is a good representation of the aproximatelly size of this animal, which was smaller than a lion-tiger but that apparently reached similar weights of over 200 kg, based in the robustness of its bones.