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Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws
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Amur tiger
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
@tigerluver
Could you help me to scale the skull size of this Cave lion canine? I previously mistaken it as an Amur tiger canine, but with the newly discovered Cave lion canine in Russia, I now believe it should belong to a Cave lion.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Sure, give me some time to do the photo.
I can give you numbers now though. Marciszak et al. (2014) gave these two skulls: San River: GSL=451 mm, CBL=402 mm, Canine alveole length=44 mm (Canine/GSL=0.0975) Mauer: GSL=442 mm, CBL=393 mm, Canine alveole length=34 mm (Canine/GSL=0.0769) So there's quite a bit of variation (going to toot my horn to repeat the problem with dentition and size estimation). The Manchurian canine is about 37 mm in width as measured by Marciszak et al. (2014). So the skull would lie somewhere in the range of the aforementioned San River and Mauer skulls in all likelihood.
It does look like the San River specimen does really have thick (lateral diameter) canines, definitely on par with some Panthera tigris specimens in proportion.
If the thickest canine diameter of Panthera tigris is about 50 mm, does this hint a possible hidden juggernaut for Panthera tigris?
I think I missed that canine. Which post it is in?
50 mm would have to produce a big skull at the least. I will say that extreme in dentition don't necessarily produce extremes in skull size. Think of how Smilodon must have evolved, for instance. (11-16-2016, 10:00 PM)tigerluver Wrote: I think I missed that canine. Which post it is in? Check the post #103 in this thread. It is true for Machairodontine that big canine doesn't mean big skull, but for Pantherine might be a different case. Also, that Amur canine is on par with the largest Smilodon popular canine in the lateral diameter, and its anterior diameter would be much thicker as well.
@tigerluver
Do you have anymore of the canine alveoli measurement? I notice that the modern tigers have much bigger canine alveoli than the modern lions, and those Pleistocene tigers also have extremely large canine alveoli, so it is going to be interesting to learn more about it.
For modern cats Christiansen's data is the best I have for alveolar widths in themselves. @peter did post a few skull from which we could get ratios. The skulls he posted I remember being on the higher side of 0.08 in terms of Canine width to GSL.
For extinct species, the Ngandong skull has a ratio of 0.08 and the Wahnsien a ratio of 0.083. The Longdan tiger had a ratio of 0.091. The highest in the American lion was about 0.08, thought most were with 0.065-0.075.
Let's assume the higher end 0.1 for the GSL/canine ratio, then its skull is still going to be around 50 cm.
I remember last time you scaled the skull up to 49.7 cm. BTW, do you have any more specimens with a larger canine alveoli than the San River holotype? Otherwise, this specimen is absolutely exceptional when it comes to the canine alveoli.
Here is the canine diameter of the specimen 2900-3 (GSL = 45.8 cm) of Panthera atrox.
So its GSL/canine ratio should be around 0.0832.  *This image is copyright of its original author
I don't think so. The giant P. fossilis were never photographed and are in private collection, out of reach. The largest of the P. atrox skulls had canine alveole breadth of less than 40 mm.
In addition to my last post, I see in Christiansen and Harris (2009), P. atrox had proportionately wider canine than the other three big cats. It seems their style of measurement was different from Merriam and Stock, which I took my last post's data from.
That's why the Amur canine with 50 mm diameter is even more intriguing, consider that even the largest Pleistocene lions have its canine alveoli rarely exceeding 40 mm, but this guy is completely on another league.
If we assign the normal GSL/canine ratio for him, then his skull is going to be outrageously large that is completely being an outlier for any big cat species in the history. If we give it a ridiculously high GSL/canine ratio for him, then it is also going to be very improbable, consider that even the highest ratio doesn't exceed 0.1 so far.
Either from the Harbin breeding center or a hundred years old very well-preserved hunting relic.
Peter believed it belongs to a wild specimen because of its impressive robustness. 
Most skulls I measured belonged to Sumatran and Javan tigers. The difference between captive and wild skulls is remarkable. One of the most pronounced differences is upper canine length and, in particular, width. A skull of a captive male tiger can have long and robust canines, but only up to a limit.
I will post many skull tables in some months. All of them will have individual entries only, which will enable us to get to a few decent conclusions. At the moment, I'm reorganising everything I have. Takes a lot of time, but couldn't be avoided. By the way. I will propose to move this thread to the Premier League. It has both good info and good views and it's well managed. My compliments, Grizzly. |
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