There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
An Oncafari biologist states that most of jaguars they study at Caiman Ecological Refuge (where the largest jaguars in the world are found, like Joker and Robusto), very rarely prey on cattle.
*This image is copyright of its original author
(04-16-2022, 06:27 PM)Twico5 Wrote: Pumas in Patagonia are eating cape hare
About this, read here : https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-cougar-...#pid141952 while European hares definitely make a bulk fo cougar diets in the Patagonia, they are usually hunted by youngsters and females, not adult males.
As you can see from that post adult males hunt primarily guanacos, rheas, and wild horses.
It is very rare for pumas to hunt wild horses. They are dangerous prey and guanacos/hares are a much more frequent prey item. Also, horse-killing pumas get huge. They’re the ones that get upwards of 100kg
“In 44 of those 147 sites we recorded hunting events. In 40 of these sites we found remains of guanacos and rheas, while in the remaining 4 we found remains of wild horses.“ Over the course of 2 years btw. 4 horses (most likely foals), over the course of 2 years, sample size = 1 male puma.
Jaguars in the pantanal also hunt horses btw. Certainly not comparable prey bases still.
Nowhere are pumas upwards of 100kg. You Are talking about an outlier when mentioning 100kg Puma.
I never said avg weight? As i said before pantanal jaguars have a better prey base than any cougar population. Every individual is large and well fed. However, a 90kg puma is not exceptional, there are usually 80-90kg pumas mentioned in every single study ive seen from argentinea and chile as well as nw states like idaho, montana, utah etc that includes weights. A 90kg puma is large yes but in areas where they have little competition and healthy prey bases why should there be any avg or 60 kilogram males?
(04-16-2022, 10:30 PM)Twico5 Wrote: It is very rare for pumas to hunt wild horses. They are dangerous prey and guanacos/hares are a much more frequent prey item. Also, horse-killing pumas get huge. They’re the ones that get upwards of 100kg
Also you said that Pepito had been killed those 4 horses in two years which is false since as the post says they started monitoring his kills in April 2020 to January 2021, that is less than one year
Yes and horse-killing pumas usually tend to be larger. I was talking about Patagonian pumas specifically when I said their predation on wild horses was rare.
Here are the measurements of a female puma trapped in Great Basin who predominantly preyed on horses. Puma populations that mainly prey on horses are larger yes, I’ve already admitted to this. But as I said earlier their prey base still isn’t comparable to the prey base pantanal jaguars have. The Great Basin is a dry and arid region, cougars here don’t have much to hunt other than horses as mule deer are low in numbers here.
(04-16-2022, 03:11 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: "130 cm is not unreliable, check that the estimations between 120 - 130 cm came from real experts and has been reconstructed based in real bones, so they are realiable and if you ask to any scientist that work with them they are going to tell you that thise sizes are facts."
experts or not estimations are only speculations, in no way are they facts and these experts themselves do not agree with each other
it is impossible to know the exact size of an animal based on the size of its skull alone. it can be seen on any living or prehistoric species. some individuals of the same species sometimes have a large head and an average size and others may have a large size and a smaller head. it is not for nothing that there are high estimates and low estimates (120 and 130 for the 392 mm skull)
if we take the low estimate of 120 cm (which is only an estimate, it can be more or less) it is about the size of the largest modern lions and tigers
"Also, there is no form to know if that specimen is an average sized Smilodon populator, do you have a sample of animals of the same sex and in a range of age to confirm that? If not, that is your personal speculation."
that is not my personal speculation, i read it here on wildfact.com on one of your post.
Post #54
“Average Smilodon populator skulls are around 35 cm long, with the length measured from premaxillary to condyle,”
You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all.
Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation.
About the average size of the skulls of Smilodon populator, I just totally forgot the statement of Aldo Manzuetti, so I guess that he measured a sample of skulls and got that result. However, that shows that 1 m of tall (estimated for an specimen of a similar sized skull) is just average for Smilodon populator, which again prove that a height up to 130 cm is completelly possible for the larger specimens.
120 cm is not the same height as modern lions and tigers. The maximum shoulder height measured for lions and tigers "between pegs" is of 114 cm, and that is with the legs streched, so the real standing height could be about 110 cm in both species. They are shorter than Smilodon populator.
"You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all."
Can you show a link for tha that other 120 cm spécimen
"Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation."
I'm sorry to contradict you but no it's impossible to know the size of an animal based only on the size of its skull, as I said in my previous post the high and low estimates are there for a good reason.
I had two male cats that were the same size and yet one had a bigger skull than the other. if we had estimated the size of the cat with a larger skull based on the skeleton of the one with a smaller skull, we would have had an overestimated size.
Really? That’s how science works? So according to your logic, as long as there is no complete skeleton of a specimen available, then all the size and weight estimations made by real ‘scientists’ are wrong?
You are contradicting yourself even. If you are so sceptical in believing estimates then why are you even believing the 100cm height estimate? That is also an ‘estimate’ after all since only the skeleton is available. we don’t have the whole animal in flesh so that should also be wrong as per your logic because that is also an ‘estimate’
Isometry is very commonly used to make estimations and since we have complete skeletons available for Smilodon Populator as well as lots of individual bones, that would allow us to scale the bones in question to similar proportions to estimate a particular size.
And your example of two cats is rubbish. One cat may have a big skull but when estimating sizes with isometry, not just one single skull is used, most often, as many skulls as possible are used (and other bones as well) just so the body proportions can get averaged out and then the body measurements are estimated for the specimen in question.
You are explicitly stating that as long as the complete skeleton is not available, all those estimates are rubbish. If this was the way ‘science worked’ then there would be no size estimates for so many prehistoric species.
"Really? That’s how science works? So according to your logic, as long as there is no complete skeleton of a specimen available, then all the size and weight estimations made by real ‘scientists’ are wrong?"
an estimate is inherently false since it is an approximation and even more so in terms of weight and I do not think that any scientists take these estimates for fact. scientists are already unable to accurately estimate the weight of a living animal so I think I can afford to be skeptical for animals that have disappeared thousands of years ago and of which there is no modern equivalent.
"You are contradicting yourself even. If you are so sceptical in believing estimates then why are you even believing the 100cm height estimate? That is also an ‘estimate’ after all since only the skeleton is available. we don’t have the whole animal in flesh so that should also be wrong as per your logic because that is also an ‘estimate’"
in no way is the size of this skeleton an estimate as it is complete and there is no guesswork to be done.
if it was about its weight, there it would be an estimate and I would be skeptical as for any estimate
"You are explicitly stating that as long as the complete skeleton is not available, all those estimates are rubbish. If this was the way ‘science worked’ then there would be no size estimates for so many prehistoric species"
estimates are predictions, theories and are part of the scientific process, if they don't hold up over time they will be thrown away, that's how science works
(04-16-2022, 03:59 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: "How is it even possible that this ‘large’ Smilodon Populator was 100cm tall (just as tall as an average Bengal Tiger) and probably even shorter in length than an average Bengal Tiger and yet it is called a large specimen? That seems impossible."
100cm tall is an average size based on this complete specimen of smilodon populator whose skull is within the average size of smilodon populator skulls.
i never said it was the size of a large specimen
"The shoulder height of a large 350-400kg Smilodon Populator specimen should be at least 120cm at the shoulder."
350 and 400 kg are only estimations and 120 cm tall smilodon populator has yet been found. this is only an estimation, a prediction not a fact until proven otherwise. the day we find a 120 cm skeleton , then it will be a fact, not before . that's how science works
That is NOT how science works. If that will be true, how do you think that paleontologists recontruct the extint animals? Check Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus, just to mention a few famous ones, they are know from few fossils but using relatives they manage to reconstruct they sizes. The same is with many, many, many prehistoric specimens.
With Pleistocene animals, like Smilodon, is more easier to calculate the sizes thanks to the complete or semi-complete specimens that we have. Again, like I said, a simple escalation can be done and we can get the size of incomplete specimens.
Weights are going to be always estimations, because we can't weigh an extint animal, but with time those estimations are more reliable with more studies done. At the moment, "up to 400 kg" or a little more is the most reliable for Smilodon populator.
Also, as far I remember, the specimen housed in Paris is the one with the height of 120 cm, so it is already found.
"That is NOT how science works. If that will be true, how do you think that paleontologists recontruct the extint animals? Check Giganotosaurus and Spinosaurus, just to mention a few famous ones, they are know from few fossils but using relatives they manage to reconstruct they sizes. The same is with many, many, many prehistoric specimens"
the spinosaurus is the perfect example of why estimates and reconstructions should be taken with skepticism. look how the weight, size and appearance of this animal have changed over the course of discoveries and it is not about to stop until we find a complete skeleton and even if we find one there is will always have debates about his weight and appearance. and that would be totally understandable because that's how science works
"With Pleistocene animals, like Smilodon, is more easier to calculate the sizes thanks to the complete or semi-complete specimens that we have. Again, like I said, a simple escalation can be done and we can get the size of incomplete specimens.
Weights are going to be always estimations, because we can't weigh an extint animal, but with time those estimations are more reliable with more studies done. At the moment, "up to 400 kg" or a little more is the most reliable for Smilodon populator."
no it is not easier to estimate the weight of the smilodon populator since there is no modern equivalent. it is already difficult to do for panthera spelaea and atrox which we have an extremely close modern equivalent, namely the lion.
weight estimates will never be reliable, 400 kg for the smilodon populator is only one estimate among others
04-17-2022, 02:13 PM( This post was last modified: 04-17-2022, 02:15 PM by LonePredator )
(04-17-2022, 03:40 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote:
(04-16-2022, 11:21 AM)LonePredator Wrote:
(04-16-2022, 04:41 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote:
(04-16-2022, 03:45 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(04-16-2022, 03:11 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: "130 cm is not unreliable, check that the estimations between 120 - 130 cm came from real experts and has been reconstructed based in real bones, so they are realiable and if you ask to any scientist that work with them they are going to tell you that thise sizes are facts."
experts or not estimations are only speculations, in no way are they facts and these experts themselves do not agree with each other
it is impossible to know the exact size of an animal based on the size of its skull alone. it can be seen on any living or prehistoric species. some individuals of the same species sometimes have a large head and an average size and others may have a large size and a smaller head. it is not for nothing that there are high estimates and low estimates (120 and 130 for the 392 mm skull)
if we take the low estimate of 120 cm (which is only an estimate, it can be more or less) it is about the size of the largest modern lions and tigers
"Also, there is no form to know if that specimen is an average sized Smilodon populator, do you have a sample of animals of the same sex and in a range of age to confirm that? If not, that is your personal speculation."
that is not my personal speculation, i read it here on wildfact.com on one of your post.
Post #54
“Average Smilodon populator skulls are around 35 cm long, with the length measured from premaxillary to condyle,”
You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all.
Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation.
About the average size of the skulls of Smilodon populator, I just totally forgot the statement of Aldo Manzuetti, so I guess that he measured a sample of skulls and got that result. However, that shows that 1 m of tall (estimated for an specimen of a similar sized skull) is just average for Smilodon populator, which again prove that a height up to 130 cm is completelly possible for the larger specimens.
120 cm is not the same height as modern lions and tigers. The maximum shoulder height measured for lions and tigers "between pegs" is of 114 cm, and that is with the legs streched, so the real standing height could be about 110 cm in both species. They are shorter than Smilodon populator.
"You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all."
Can you show a link for tha that other 120 cm spécimen
"Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation."
I'm sorry to contradict you but no it's impossible to know the size of an animal based only on the size of its skull, as I said in my previous post the high and low estimates are there for a good reason.
I had two male cats that were the same size and yet one had a bigger skull than the other. if we had estimated the size of the cat with a larger skull based on the skeleton of the one with a smaller skull, we would have had an overestimated size.
Really? That’s how science works? So according to your logic, as long as there is no complete skeleton of a specimen available, then all the size and weight estimations made by real ‘scientists’ are wrong?
You are contradicting yourself even. If you are so sceptical in believing estimates then why are you even believing the 100cm height estimate? That is also an ‘estimate’ after all since only the skeleton is available. we don’t have the whole animal in flesh so that should also be wrong as per your logic because that is also an ‘estimate’
Isometry is very commonly used to make estimations and since we have complete skeletons available for Smilodon Populator as well as lots of individual bones, that would allow us to scale the bones in question to similar proportions to estimate a particular size.
And your example of two cats is rubbish. One cat may have a big skull but when estimating sizes with isometry, not just one single skull is used, most often, as many skulls as possible are used (and other bones as well) just so the body proportions can get averaged out and then the body measurements are estimated for the specimen in question.
You are explicitly stating that as long as the complete skeleton is not available, all those estimates are rubbish. If this was the way ‘science worked’ then there would be no size estimates for so many prehistoric species.
"Really? That’s how science works? So according to your logic, as long as there is no complete skeleton of a specimen available, then all the size and weight estimations made by real ‘scientists’ are wrong?"
an estimate is inherently false since it is an approximation and even more so in terms of weight and I do not think that any scientists take these estimates for fact. scientists are already unable to accurately estimate the weight of a living animal so I think I can afford to be skeptical for animals that have disappeared thousands of years ago and of which there is no modern equivalent.
"You are contradicting yourself even. If you are so sceptical in believing estimates then why are you even believing the 100cm height estimate? That is also an ‘estimate’ after all since only the skeleton is available. we don’t have the whole animal in flesh so that should also be wrong as per your logic because that is also an ‘estimate’"
in no way is the size of this skeleton an estimate as it is complete and there is no guesswork to be done.
if it was about its weight, there it would be an estimate and I would be skeptical as for any estimate
"You are explicitly stating that as long as the complete skeleton is not available, all those estimates are rubbish. If this was the way ‘science worked’ then there would be no size estimates for so many prehistoric species"
estimates are predictions, theories and are part of the scientific process, if they don't hold up over time they will be thrown away, that's how science works
You said it's complete? How is it complete? The height of a skeleton is not the same as the height of the whole animal in flesh. You think the shoulder height of a bear skeleton would be the same as the bear's height in flesh?
You are on one hand saying all estimates are wrong and yet the height of the skeleton is also an estimate but that one is correct to you.
If you are this skeptical then why are you making reconstructions of Smilodon Populator? You have never seen what a real one looks like other than some 'estimates' then why are you reconstructing it from the 'estimates' if you are so skeptical?
(04-16-2022, 03:11 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: "130 cm is not unreliable, check that the estimations between 120 - 130 cm came from real experts and has been reconstructed based in real bones, so they are realiable and if you ask to any scientist that work with them they are going to tell you that thise sizes are facts."
experts or not estimations are only speculations, in no way are they facts and these experts themselves do not agree with each other
it is impossible to know the exact size of an animal based on the size of its skull alone. it can be seen on any living or prehistoric species. some individuals of the same species sometimes have a large head and an average size and others may have a large size and a smaller head. it is not for nothing that there are high estimates and low estimates (120 and 130 for the 392 mm skull)
if we take the low estimate of 120 cm (which is only an estimate, it can be more or less) it is about the size of the largest modern lions and tigers
"Also, there is no form to know if that specimen is an average sized Smilodon populator, do you have a sample of animals of the same sex and in a range of age to confirm that? If not, that is your personal speculation."
that is not my personal speculation, i read it here on wildfact.com on one of your post.
Post #54
“Average Smilodon populator skulls are around 35 cm long, with the length measured from premaxillary to condyle,”
You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all.
Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation.
About the average size of the skulls of Smilodon populator, I just totally forgot the statement of Aldo Manzuetti, so I guess that he measured a sample of skulls and got that result. However, that shows that 1 m of tall (estimated for an specimen of a similar sized skull) is just average for Smilodon populator, which again prove that a height up to 130 cm is completelly possible for the larger specimens.
120 cm is not the same height as modern lions and tigers. The maximum shoulder height measured for lions and tigers "between pegs" is of 114 cm, and that is with the legs streched, so the real standing height could be about 110 cm in both species. They are shorter than Smilodon populator.
"You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all."
Can you show a link for tha that other 120 cm spécimen
"Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation."
I'm sorry to contradict you but no it's impossible to know the size of an animal based only on the size of its skull, as I said in my previous post the high and low estimates are there for a good reason.
I had two male cats that were the same size and yet one had a bigger skull than the other. if we had estimated the size of the cat with a larger skull based on the skeleton of the one with a smaller skull, we would have had an overestimated size.
Really? That’s how science works? So according to your logic, as long as there is no complete skeleton of a specimen available, then all the size and weight estimations made by real ‘scientists’ are wrong?
You are contradicting yourself even. If you are so sceptical in believing estimates then why are you even believing the 100cm height estimate? That is also an ‘estimate’ after all since only the skeleton is available. we don’t have the whole animal in flesh so that should also be wrong as per your logic because that is also an ‘estimate’
Isometry is very commonly used to make estimations and since we have complete skeletons available for Smilodon Populator as well as lots of individual bones, that would allow us to scale the bones in question to similar proportions to estimate a particular size.
And your example of two cats is rubbish. One cat may have a big skull but when estimating sizes with isometry, not just one single skull is used, most often, as many skulls as possible are used (and other bones as well) just so the body proportions can get averaged out and then the body measurements are estimated for the specimen in question.
You are explicitly stating that as long as the complete skeleton is not available, all those estimates are rubbish. If this was the way ‘science worked’ then there would be no size estimates for so many prehistoric species.
"Really? That’s how science works? So according to your logic, as long as there is no complete skeleton of a specimen available, then all the size and weight estimations made by real ‘scientists’ are wrong?"
an estimate is inherently false since it is an approximation and even more so in terms of weight and I do not think that any scientists take these estimates for fact. scientists are already unable to accurately estimate the weight of a living animal so I think I can afford to be skeptical for animals that have disappeared thousands of years ago and of which there is no modern equivalent.
"You are contradicting yourself even. If you are so sceptical in believing estimates then why are you even believing the 100cm height estimate? That is also an ‘estimate’ after all since only the skeleton is available. we don’t have the whole animal in flesh so that should also be wrong as per your logic because that is also an ‘estimate’"
in no way is the size of this skeleton an estimate as it is complete and there is no guesswork to be done.
if it was about its weight, there it would be an estimate and I would be skeptical as for any estimate
"You are explicitly stating that as long as the complete skeleton is not available, all those estimates are rubbish. If this was the way ‘science worked’ then there would be no size estimates for so many prehistoric species"
estimates are predictions, theories and are part of the scientific process, if they don't hold up over time they will be thrown away, that's how science works
You said it's complete? How is it complete? The height of a skeleton is not the same as the height of the whole animal in flesh. You think the shoulder height of a bear skeleton would be the same as the bear's height in flesh?
You are on one hand saying all estimates are wrong and yet the height of the skeleton is also an estimate but that one is correct to you.
If you are this skeptical then why are you making reconstructions of Smilodon Populator? You have never seen what a real one looks like other than some 'estimates' then why are you reconstructing it from the 'estimates' if you are so skeptical?
"You said it's complete? How is it complete? The height of a skeleton is not the same as the height of the whole animal in flesh. You think the shoulder height of a bear skeleton would be the same as the bear's height in flesh?
You are on one hand saying all estimates are wrong and yet the height of the skeleton is also an estimate but that one is correct to you."
obviously an estimate is by definition false, but even being an estimate this complete skeleton is infinitely more precise than an estimate made on an isolated skull.
and I never claimed that the height of a skeleton and a living animal were the same
"If you are this skeptical then why are you making reconstructions of Smilodon Populator? You have never seen what a real one looks like other than some 'estimates' then why are you reconstructing it from the 'estimates' if you are so skeptical?"
this reconstruction is not mine, nor have I ever asserted that a smilodon populator looked exactly like this reconstruction.
all I said is that based on a complete skeleton i.e. this:
*This image is copyright of its original author
a smilodon populator was more likely to look like this:
An Oncafari biologist states that most of jaguars they study at Caiman Ecological Refuge (where the largest jaguars in the world are found, like Joker and Robusto), very rarely prey on cattle.
*This image is copyright of its original author
(04-16-2022, 06:27 PM)Twico5 Wrote: Pumas in Patagonia are eating cape hare
About this, read here : https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-cougar-...#pid141952 while European hares definitely make a bulk fo cougar diets in the Patagonia, they are usually hunted by youngsters and females, not adult males.
As you can see from that post adult males hunt primarily guanacos, rheas, and wild horses.
It is very rare for pumas to hunt wild horses. They are dangerous prey and guanacos/hares are a much more frequent prey item. Also, horse-killing pumas get huge. They’re the ones that get upwards of 100kg
“In 44 of those 147 sites we recorded hunting events. In 40 of these sites we found remains of guanacos and rheas, while in the remaining 4 we found remains of wild horses.“ Over the course of 2 years btw. 4 horses (most likely foals), over the course of 2 years, sample size = 1 male puma.
Jaguars in the pantanal also hunt horses btw. Certainly not comparable prey bases still.
Nowhere are pumas upwards of 100kg. You Are talking about an outlier when mentioning 100kg Puma.
I never said avg weight? As i said before pantanal jaguars have a better prey base than any cougar population. Every individual is large and well fed. However, a 90kg puma is not exceptional, there are usually 80-90kg pumas mentioned in every single study ive seen from argentinea and chile as well as nw states like idaho, montana, utah etc that includes weights. A 90kg puma is large yes but in areas where they have little competition and healthy prey bases why should there be any avg or 60 kilogram males?
Never did I say average either, you said "upwards of 100kg." Which is extremely rare for any Cougar.
90kg is also extremely rare for any Cougar, any cougar between 80-90kg will be in the upper tier.
*This image is copyright of its original author
You'll notice that only one there even reached 80kgs.
Also, Pumas in Patagonia have just as large of of a prey base as Pantanal Jaguars.
Quote:Yes and horse-killing pumas usually tend to be larger. I was talking about Patagonian pumas specifically when I said their predation on wild horses was rare.
This is also an unfounded claim. Wild horses would be even more difficult than Guanaco, generally speaking the only Cats that could prey on adults would be large ones regardless.
Quote:Amazonian Jaguars vary in size. Most are large and here is their prey base:
The largest verified amazonian Jaguar was around 70kgs.
Quote:Now of course they don’t have 10 million caiman to prey on and nor do they have huge cattle herds grazing in their territories but they do have tons of reptilian prey. These are animals cougars don’t typically hunt.
Again, they must become sloth hunters for months out of the year and the terrain doesn't allow them to hunt that prey.
Quote:“Sloths”. Throughout most of the Amazon they’re preying on large reptiles
What exactly are these "large reptiles" you think they are preying on?
And there is no debate, sloths make up a high majority of Amazon Jaguars diet. Sloths also make up a large portion of the Jaguars diet in Costa Rica as well.
Prey abundance drives habitat occupancy by jaguars in Amazonian
floodplain river islands
Rafael M. Rabeloa,b,∗
, Susan Aragónc
, Júlio César Bicca-Marquesd
"Jaguars’ predominant terrestriality does not preclude them from
occurring in Amazonian seasonally flooded forests (herein várzea forests). This is the case at the Mamirauá Sustainable Development
Reserve – a protected area of várzea forests in Central Amazon – where
jaguars reach high densities probably because of high prey abundance
(Ramalho, 2012). The availability of arboreal (e.g., sloths and monkeys;
Rabelo et al., 2017) and water-associated (e.g., caimans and their eggs;
Ramalho, 2012; Torralvo et al., 2017) prey species allows jaguars to
reside yearlong in flooded forests, including the 4- to 6-month-long
high-water season (Ramalho et al., 2009; Ramalho, 2012)."
"Jaguar probability of site occupancy was positively influenced by
the abundance of both howlers and sloths (Table 1; Fig. 2a and b).
Although both estimates were not significant at HPD95 (i.e., the HPD95
interval included the zero), we found strong evidence that sloth and
howler abundances increase the probability of habitat occupancy by
jaguars [likelihood estimates: p (β1 > 0) = 0.93 and p
(β2 > 0) = 0.94, respectively]. We estimated a similar proportion of
island and continuous forest sites used by jaguars (ψ = 0.75, HPD95:
0.36–1.00, Fig. 2c). Additionally, we found that the abundances of both
sloths and howlers have similar effects on jaguar probability of occurrence " https://ppbio.inpa.gov.br/sites/default/...artigo.pdf
Quote:Nw Mexico isn’t the only place where they’re the same size. Peru:
Again we are talking about the Amazon and still Jaguars there will outsize the Puma, but it's not as exaggerated as it is in the Pantanal, Chaco, Cerrado, Los Llanos etc.
Quote:Pumas in Patagonia are eating cape hares
I will 100% guarantee you that Guanaco make up way more prey consumption than hare for any Cougar in Patagonia.
You need to understand a hare is 1/100th the size of a Guanaco and one Guanaco will substantially contribute far more to a Cougars diet than 20 hare but the hare's quantity will skew the results. The reason Patagonia is the only place on earth where you see numerous Cougars feeding on a single carcass isn't because of Hares, trust me.
This is also shown in the study with regards to the "prey consumed" table.
Quote:If they’re large here then it would only be because of the couple thousand guanacos here as opposed to the many reasons why pantanal Jaguars reach enourmous sizes. Millions of yacare caiman, 3000 cattle ranches in the region, 0 competition, everything else is also on the roster as prey vs puma population that has only 1 wild prey animal over 5kg. It’s true that Patagonian pumas are apex predators, but according to what you’ve been saying about Jaguars being dominant over pumas, jags would be dominant in every part of their range as well. But they’re small in many places. Guess what? Jaguars are apex predators in the cerrado as well, yet you decide to remind me that there are 140kg pantanal Jaguars! Why aren’t we comparing Amazon jag and Patagonian puma sizes? Both are apexes right? Why is it that one apex niche population is smaller than another apex niche population? I think it might have to do with the prey base that the pantanal has!
This excuse holds no water.
Guanaco numbers in Patagonia are between 100-200 thousand at least. There are also immense sheep farms which contribute to Cougar prey. And of course because of the density of prey you also have the highest cougar density on earth. And like the Pantanal Jaguars, these cougars have no competition.
Also, tell me again where Jaguars are small since you said "many places." And what does the Cerrado have to do with anything? You realize jaguars are also massive in the Cerrado, only slightly smaller than Pantanal ones. Lastly, I think I've explained the differences between the Amazon compared to elsewhere pretty well.
Quote:Several male pumas from this region weighing around 90 kilograms. Don’t most male Jaguars in the pantanal weigh around this much? Even then pantanal Jaguars have a much better prey base. Some of these pumas mainly killed and ate livestock. Jaguars in the pantanal eat everything in their territory and the abundance of livestock as well as their own favored wild prey is much higher. It would be foolish to believe that 100 kilograms is the max weight for male pumas btw. There have been many records from scientific literature of male pumas weighing upwards of 100kg, if you’d like I can post some of them.
There is a difference between Per. Comm and actually weighed first hand. And once again, the average male jaguar in the pantanal is 108 kgs which is significantly heavier than any cougar population and heavier than almost any cougar ever weighed. There is one claimed to have been close to 110kg in Patagonia but not confirmed.
Just scroll through here https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-modern-...ld-cougars
You'll quickly see that verified 100kg Cougars are extremely lacking on top of how rare a 90kg Cougar is. They're much like Leopards, 70-80kg is a good sized male, 90kg is exceptional and 100kg is extremely rare.
(04-16-2022, 04:41 AM)Mwarcaar Wrote: "You have a confusion here. The estimation of shoulder height for the specimen of Uruguay (392 mm) is 130 cm, the estimation of 120 cm came from OTHER specimens, which we can corroborate easely as this shoulder height was already in litterature before the skull from Uruguay was found, so there is no dissagreement at all."
Can you show a link for tha that other 120 cm spécimen
"Of course that is possible to know the size of an animal based on the skull, you can ask @tigerluver which is an expert on this and he can explain to you. Animals are simetric and that is a fact that we can easily corroborate with modern cats and there is no reason to believe that Smilodon was different. That is something that any Biologist and Paleontologist can do with a collection of measurements, is just a simple escalation."
I'm sorry to contradict you but no it's impossible to know the size of an animal based only on the size of its skull, as I said in my previous post the high and low estimates are there for a good reason.
I had two male cats that were the same size and yet one had a bigger skull than the other. if we had estimated the size of the cat with a larger skull based on the skeleton of the one with a smaller skull, we would have had an overestimated size.
These are the two sources for the shoulder height, both of them before the Urugay specimen was even discovered:
* Turner & Anton, 1997:
*This image is copyright of its original author
* Anton, 2013:
*This image is copyright of its original author
Christiansen & Harris (2005) estimated a body mass between 220-360 kg, with the biggest specimen been an humerus labeled as MLP10-13 with a total length of 387.5 mm and a calculated weight of 358.4 kg. Incredible all the specimens used by them are smaller than the specimen "Smilodon bonaerensis 46" described by Mendez (1933) which suggest than that the specimen even been "average" (using the skull as a surrogated( could be no less than 360 kg and the bigger specimens like the ones from Uruguay or Paris were not just bigger but certainly heavier.
Your example of the domestic cats is not accurate, you are using on ly two cats and maybe they are not of the same race (I guess). When scientists calculate the estimations of size normally use bigger samples or better methods than just two cats. Again, animals are normally simetric and we can reconstruct with a certain degree of reliability the size of many animals. I also noted that you completelly ignored my examples of famous animals, so I need to remind you that 90% of the prehistoric animals and its sizes in litterature are estimated in this form.
I see your point, you say that unless that we have a complete skeleton we can't know the real size of an animal, but that is incorrect. Many, many prehistoric animals are known from fragmentary elements so the sizes that you see in litterature are estimations. Saying that any estimation of size is "false" is ridiculous, no scientist is going to say that, in fact, the only thing is that with better methods we can make betters calculations, but this is normally with weights, as with body size the escalation is easier as long as we have a good comparative base.
(04-16-2022, 08:30 AM)Twico5 Wrote: That chart includes mammalian prey only. It literally says that reptiles make up 54% of jaguar diets in the screenshot you posted. Also what? Florida panthers are smaller than belizean jaguars? Obviously not true. Yes, they do have a better prey base, but for some reason theyre still small, just not smaller than belizean jaguars. They are heavier, taller and longer and if youd like i can show proof of this
“in order to have similar body masses, jaguars need to have a lower prey base and small size than pumas”. So then howcome when they have the same prey base they look like this? It seems as if jaguars dont need smaller prey bases to be larger but instead specific reptillian prey species in order to be puma sized or larger! Two adult females from nw mexico btw:
*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
I see that you don't even understood what I told you.
First of all, you don't even read the image that I post, so here it is again:
*This image is copyright of its original author
*This image is copyright of its original author
You can clearly see that they DID include reptiles, not just mammals as you claim. In fact, take the time to read the image as it self explanatory, check that the reptiles importance drop to 0.9%, read the full document (Prey Preferences of the Jaguar Panthera onca Reflect the Post-Pleistocene Demise of Large Prey - Hayward et al, 2016).
You don't even understood the example of the Florida panthers and the Belize jaguars. Again, the jaguars in Belize had lower prey base while the pumas from Florida had a better prey base and larger prey animals, the point is to show that only when the prey is low then the jaguar is going to be of the same average size than a puma population, but when both species had the same prey base, jaguars are definitelly going to be heavier. You claim to show proof, but you forget that the same images that I showed previously shows that pumas is Florida are bigger than jaguars in Belize, but the problem is that you are completelly ignoring the context of this phenomenon, which is directly related with prey base. There is your error in your analogy.
You insist with the reptiles as principal prey base, but that is completelly incorrect, and the previous study shows your error. By the way, in the images you say that you show "adult" females from New Mexico, well you should remember that jaguars are animals that need water and that dry habitat is not the best for them, while pumas are better adapter to drier climates. By the way, can you show that those animals, specially the jaguar, is really an adult?
(04-16-2022, 08:30 AM)Twico5 Wrote: That chart includes mammalian prey only. It literally says that reptiles make up 54% of jaguar diets in the screenshot you posted. Also what? Florida panthers are smaller than belizean jaguars? Obviously not true. Yes, they do have a better prey base, but for some reason theyre still small, just not smaller than belizean jaguars. They are heavier, taller and longer and if youd like i can show proof of this
“in order to have similar body masses, jaguars need to have a lower prey base and small size than pumas”. So then howcome when they have the same prey base they look like this? It seems as if jaguars dont need smaller prey bases to be larger but instead specific reptillian prey species in order to be puma sized or larger! Two adult females from nw mexico btw:
*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
I see that you don't even understood what I told you.
First of all, you don't even read the image that I post, so here it is again:
*This image is copyright of its original author
*This image is copyright of its original author
You can clearly see that they DID include reptiles, not just mammals as you claim. In fact, take the time to read the image as it self explanatory, check that the reptiles importance drop to 0.9%, read the full document (Prey Preferences of the Jaguar Panthera onca Reflect the Post-Pleistocene Demise of Large Prey - Hayward et al, 2016).
You don't even understood the example of the Florida panthers and the Belize jaguars. Again, the jaguars in Belize had lower prey base while the pumas from Florida had a better prey base and larger prey animals, the point is to show that only when the prey is low then the jaguar is going to be of the same average size than a puma population, but when both species had the same prey base, jaguars are definitelly going to be heavier. You claim to show proof, but you forget that the same images that I showed previously shows that pumas is Florida are bigger than jaguars in Belize, but the problem is that you are completelly ignoring the context of this phenomenon, which is directly related with prey base. There is your error in your analogy.
You insist with the reptiles as principal prey base, but that is completelly incorrect, and the previous study shows your error. By the way, in the images you say that you show "adult" females from New Mexico, well you should remember that jaguars are animals that need water and that dry habitat is not the best for them, while pumas are better adapter to drier climates. By the way, can you show that those animals, specially the jaguar, is really an adult?
Yes, that makes perfect sense. A 40-50kg Yacare Caiman may simply not be worth that much effort when larger prey can be hunted with the same amount of effort.
