Wanhsien tiger ~

[GrizzlyClaws]

(02-03-2022, 05:38 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: Base on the evidence available in litterature, the Wanshien tiger (Panthera tigris acutidens) was of the same size as modern Bengal and Amur tigers, or maybe slightly bigger in the best of the cases. Now, there are several bones in private collections, including a huge skull that sadly are not available for study, so they are useless for conclutions.

Those giant specimens from the private collections mostly belonged to the late Pleistocene, and probably morphologically/genetically not much different from the modern tigers.

Whereas those Wanhsien tigers were quite archaic in comparison, probably it was the predecessor of those giant tigers from the late Pleistocene. Reply

[tostwear]

(02-03-2022, 05:38 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(02-03-2022, 02:32 AM)tostwear Wrote: Hello first of all @GuateGojira  @tigerluver 
I will ask you a few questions.

• Is it true that the Alaskan Tiger is Panthera Tigris Acutidens?
• How many mm is the largest skull of Panthera Tigris Acutidens (Wanhsien tiger)?
• What is the maximum weight of Panthera Tigris Acutidens? (from the largest skull)
  
  

I will be glad if you answer my questions.

Hello, here are my answers:

1. In theory, those tigers from Alaska should be P. t. acutidens, however, there is no formal description of the specimens, measurements or anything, appart from the metrical study of Sandra Herrington in 1987. Also, some of those specimens were used in genetic studies by Dr Ross Barnet and resulted that they are cave "lions" Panthera spelaea, so they affinity is still in dispute.

2. There are only fragments from skulls of this tiger subspecies and Colbert & Hooijer (1953) did not provided any measurements (or estimation at least) of this large fragments, except for the dentition, which is larger than any modern tiger. Now, Hooijer (1947) did reported a complete skull and a picture was provided, but again, he did not published any measurement from the skull, except from the dentition, upper and lower jaw. In the particular specimen A.M.N.H. No. 18624, the mandible measured c.215 mm, and if you compare it with the other tiger specimens in table 3 of his document, the skull probably measured slightly less than 330 mm, about the size of an average sized Indochinese tiger (328.6 mm). Using my equation of mandible-GSL I can calculate a GLS of c.325 mm, assuming that is a male. Average weight of the modern subspecies P. t. corbetti  is of 191 kg in males, so about 185 kg will be a good weight estimation for this specimen, the only complete skull (for the moment).

*This image is copyright of its original author

3 - As there are specimens that are larger than A.M.N.H. No. 18624, but that we only know the dentition, we can calculate a weight based on them. The largest specimen recorded (based in upper dentition) by Colbert & Hooijer (1953) is the A.M.N.H. 18678 which consist in a right upper Pm4, right lower canine, fragment of right mandibular ramus with lower pm3, pm4 (broken), right pm4 and left lower m1. The biggest specimen based in lower dentition is A.M.N.H. 18680 which correspond to a left upper canine, left upper Pm 4, maxillary fragment with right pm4, left lower canine, left pm4 and fragment of the right mandibular ramus with lower m 1. The important lengths are:

A.M.N.H. 18678
Upper Pm 4: 42 mm length X 22 mm wide.
Lower m 1: 30.8 mm length X 16 mm wide.

A.M.N.H. 18680
Upper Pm 4: 37.8 mm length X 21.4 mm wide.
Lower m 1: 31.0 mm length X 15.7 mm wide.

Using dental formulas like Van Valkenburg (1991) and Legendre and Roth (1988) I calculated a body mass of 267 kg for these specimens with a probably maximum of up to 300 kg, taking in count that dentitions like this probably belonged to skulls of about 400 mm in GSL or slightly over that.  

Base on the evidence available in litterature, the Wanshien tiger (Panthera tigris acutidens) was of the same size as modern Bengal and Amur tigers, or maybe slightly bigger in the best of the cases. Now, there are several bones in private collections, including a huge skull that sadly are not available for study, so they are useless for conclutions.

Thanks for your response. Reply

[tigerluver]

(02-03-2022, 02:32 AM)tostwear Wrote: Hello first of all @GuateGojira  @tigerluver 
I will ask you a few questions.

• Is it true that the Alaskan Tiger is Panthera Tigris Acutidens?
• How many mm is the largest skull of Panthera Tigris Acutidens (Wanhsien tiger)?
• What is the maximum weight of Panthera Tigris Acutidens? (from the largest skull)
  

I will be glad if you answer my questions.

I am in agreeance with @GrizzlyClaws and @GuateGojira for the most part. Things to add:

1. As @GrizzlyClaws mentioned, P. t. acutidens is quite archaic and the tigers that may have been on Alaska are quite recent. At this time, we don't have any concrete evidence of the tiger making it to Alaska as @GuateGojira explained.

2. The 42 mm P4 is the largest specimen. If we use large subspecies of tiger as reference, the skull would be around 380-430 mm. Unfortunately dentition are very variable so the size estimate range is wide.

3. The Legendre and Roth (1988) are poor predictors for tiger weight and dentition in themselves are not very reliable. Nonetheless, the aforementioned skull length range would result in a mass range of 250-350 kg. Reply

[Amphi]

@GuateGojira @tigerluver 

Hello. I want to ask you a question. What exactly is the shoulder height of the Wanhsien tiger? roman uchytel gives a figure like 120cm, but I don't trust that man's information at all. Reply

[Amphi]

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply

[GuateGojira]

(02-28-2022, 09:59 PM)Amphi Wrote: @GuateGojira @tigerluver 

Hello. I want to ask you a question. What exactly is the shoulder height of the Wanhsien tiger? roman uchytel gives a figure like 120cm, but I don't trust that man's information at all.

Depends of the size estimation. If we guess that the largest specimen could be as large as the biggest modern tigers (skull 400 mm and head-body 220 cm), then the shoulder height will be about 110 cm. But this is just IF they reached that size, remember that dentition is problematic to estimate sizes, but the upper Pm4 of 42 mm definitelly belonged to an specimen of over 200 cm in lenght and 1 m in shoulder height.

120 cm and over in just for the biggest Ngandong tiger and the Pleistocene Borneo tiger.

Check how tall is a tiger with 110 cm in standing height:

*This image is copyright of its original author

These are real standing heights measured by Vratislav Mazák and Dr W Gewalt, in the living animal (real pictures of those specimens). Reply

[GuateGojira]

(02-28-2022, 10:00 PM)Amphi Wrote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

One of my old draws!

This is the original, without that ugly red box on it:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Also this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(02-28-2022, 11:19 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(02-28-2022, 10:00 PM)Amphi Wrote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

One of my old draws!

This is the original, without that ugly red box on it:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Also this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The recent fossil evidence shows that the late Pleistocene Wanhsien tigers were most likely super massive beasts with extremely robust stature.

They represented all survivors of the tiger species after the Toba eruption, and started to re-flourish around MIS4 to MIS3.


All modern tiger subspecies were descended from these late Pleistocene Wanhsien tigers, but the Manchurian Amur tigers were morphologically their closest descendants.


The Ngandong tiger represented a parallel sister lineage to the Wanhsien tiger, and the Holocene Sunda tigers represented the continued lineage of the Ngandong tiger.

The giant Bornean tiger was genetically/morphologically a giant Malayan/Sumatran tiger, which was also likely a hybrid subspecies between the Wanhsien tiger and Ngandong tiger.

That's why the giant Bornean tiger was morphologically much more southern shifted than other mainland tiger subspecies, because they were also partially descended from the Ngandong tiger. Reply

[Bitishannah]

Any official evidence that wahsien tiger was larger than modern tigers and similar in weight to American lion? Reply

[GuateGojira]

(07-10-2023, 01:31 PM)Bitishannah Wrote: Any official evidence that wahsien tiger was larger than modern tigers and similar in weight to American lion?

Yes and No. 

But let's clarify something. There is no "oficial evidence", that therm do not exist in Paleontology. What we have is "published data", and based in that, the biggest Wanhsien tigers were as big as the biggest modern Bengal/Amur tigers, if not slightly bigger, but not for a very big difference. The only prehistoric tigers, studied and published, that were equal or bigger than the American "lion" are the Ngandong tiger and the Pleistocene Borneo tiger.

However, there are some specimens in private collections of Wanhsien tigers that did reached huge sizes, sadly the measurements are not published so we can only speculate based in pictures. Reply