Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-08-2018, 10:22 PM)genao87 Wrote: grizz,  so you saying that is a different tiger species?  if so then which one?

According to @tigerluver, they were not that much different from the modern tigers, apart its size.

These giant tigers existed after the formation of the modern tiger subspecies, so it is plausible to classify them as the modern tigers. Reply

[brotherbear]

Don't believe in Wikipedia; good rule to remember. Reply

[genao87]

i hope that this doesnt turn out to be some giant Siberian Tiger or Bengal..since they grew bigger themselves in the past. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-08-2018, 10:44 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 10:22 PM)genao87 Wrote: grizz,  so you saying that is a different tiger species?  if so then which one?

It seems that acording with the posts of @tigerluver and @GrizzlyClaws, this new tiger was indeed a huge specimen, I mean, a mandible of over 30 cm is very large!

Also, all the "lion" from the Pleistocene are not lions at all, but a completelly diferent species. So Panthera fossilis, Panthera spelaea and Panthera atrox are NOT lions, but they own species and is suported by morphology and DNA studies, which is great!

Giant lions, just that of Natodomeri and even that large lion was not larger than the largest P. atrox or P. spelaea and probably no larger than P. tigris soloensis.

Yep, tiger as a species was probably as old as the basal ancestor of the Spelaea-Atrox group, and it was indeed much older than Panthera leo.

But I do believe that the Spelaea-Atrox group and Panthera leo shared a basal ancestor 2 million years ago in Africa. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-08-2018, 11:31 PM)genao87 Wrote: i hope that this doesnt turn out to be some giant Siberian Tiger or Bengal..since they grew bigger themselves in the past.

The modern tigers did evolve from those antiquated subspecies like the Ngandong tiger and Wanhsien tiger.

They were initially giant-sized like their predecessors, but later decreased in size due many external factors like climate change and human intervention. Reply

[GuateGojira]

In fact, Spelaea-atrox, leo and pardus do share a common ancestor in Africa. It is plausible that the ancestor was close in size and form to the modern leopard. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-08-2018, 11:38 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: In fact, Spelaea-atrox, leo and pardus do share a common ancestor in Africa. It is plausible that the ancestor was close in size and form to the modern leopard.

Do you think this basal ancestor should also include the jaguar and leopard?

Then the Spelaea-atrox group shouldn't be considered as lion anymore, as they were just as "lion" as the jaguar and leopard.

But @tigerluver still has the inclination to consider them as the close relatives of the modern lions, maybe they split with the modern lions much later after the formation of the jaguar and leopard. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(09-08-2018, 11:43 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 11:38 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: In fact, Spelaea-atrox, leo and pardus do share a common ancestor in Africa. It is plausible that the ancestor was close in size and form to the modern leopard.

Do you think this basal ancestor should also include the jaguar and leopard?

Then the Spelaea-atrox group shouldn't be considered as lion anymore, as they were just as "lion" as the jaguar and leopard.

But @tigerluver still has the inclination to consider them as the close relatives of the modern lions, maybe they split with the modern lions much later after the formation of the jaguar and leopard.

Spelaea-atrox are not lions, they are related with modern leo but are not lions stricto sensu. Leopards do evolved about the same time that this large cats split or maybe alittle earlier, as far I remember, but in the case of jaguars I remember that they evolved in the forests of Europa and latter they traveled to America. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-09-2018, 02:53 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 11:43 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(09-08-2018, 11:38 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: In fact, Spelaea-atrox, leo and pardus do share a common ancestor in Africa. It is plausible that the ancestor was close in size and form to the modern leopard.

Do you think this basal ancestor should also include the jaguar and leopard?

Then the Spelaea-atrox group shouldn't be considered as lion anymore, as they were just as "lion" as the jaguar and leopard.

But @tigerluver still has the inclination to consider them as the close relatives of the modern lions, maybe they split with the modern lions much later after the formation of the jaguar and leopard.

Spelaea-atrox are not lions, they are related with modern leo but are not lions stricto sensu. Leopards do evolved about the same time that this large cats split or maybe alittle earlier, as far I remember, but in the case of jaguars I remember that they evolved in the forests of Europa and latter they traveled to America.

For example, the animals like gorilla and clouded leopard all have twin species, could this be the case for the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion?

The Mainland clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard had been diverged over 1.6 million years, yet both species are still considered as clouded leopard, and same case for the eastern gorilla and western gorilla. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(09-09-2018, 03:15 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: For example, the animals like gorilla and clouded leopard all have twin species, could this be the case for the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion?

The Mainland clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard had been diverged over 1.6 million years, yet both species are still considered as clouded leopard, and same case for the eastern gorilla and western gorilla.

That is a good point, but also remember that is all related with Taxonomy and the point of view of the researcher. Remember that Cracraft et al. (1998) and Mazák & Groves (2006) using molecular and morphological studies and following the rules of the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC), they clasified all the island tigers as a completelly diferent species (not subspecies) ot tigers. However the last meeting of the UICN/SSC Cats Specialist Group, the island tigers are just "subspecies". So it depends of the people and the evaluation of the information.

Other example is the polar bears, some studies separate it from the brown bears for millions of years while othere give a separation of less than 300,000 years! And we know how diferent are the polar from the brown bears.

So, with a diference of at least 1.5 millions years, the spelaea/atrox groups should be a diferent species from leo and that is the final conclusion in Barnett et al. (2016) and for the moment, I follow that conclusion, especially when we see that King & Wallace in the document "Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters" from 2014, still found tiger afinities in Panthera atrox, which suggest primitive characteristics that Panthera spelaea lost and that Panthera leo lacks completelly. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-09-2018, 04:14 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 03:15 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: For example, the animals like gorilla and clouded leopard all have twin species, could this be the case for the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion?

The Mainland clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard had been diverged over 1.6 million years, yet both species are still considered as clouded leopard, and same case for the eastern gorilla and western gorilla.

That is a good point, but also remember that is all related with Taxonomy and the point of view of the researcher. Remember that Cracraft et al. (1998) and Mazák & Groves (2006) using molecular and morphological studies and following the rules of the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC), they clasified all the island tigers as a completelly diferent species (not subspecies) ot tigers. However the last meeting of the UICN/SSC Cats Specialist Group, the island tigers are just "subspecies". So it depends of the people and the evaluation of the information.

Other example is the polar bears, some studies separate it from the brown bears for millions of years while othere give a separation of less than 300,000 years! And we know how diferent are the polar from the brown bears.

So, with a diference of at least 1.5 millions years, the spelaea/atrox groups should be a diferent species from leo and that is the final conclusion in Barnett et al. (2016) and for the moment, I follow that conclusion, especially when we see that King & Wallace in the document "Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters" from 2014,  still found tiger afinities in Panthera atrox, which suggest primitive characteristics that Panthera spelaea lost and that Panthera leo lacks completelly.

The two separated species within a same genus should have enough genetic barrier that prevents them to produce the 100% healthy fertile offspring.

The Sunda tiger was a relatively distantly related subspecies from the Mainland tiger, since they had been genetically isolated from each other in the late Pleistocene. In comparison, the Mainland tigers had only been separated by the human intervention in the recent time, but genetically the Sunda tiger is not an outlier within the tiger genetic boundary.

Maybe the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion had already developed this unique strain of DNA that prevent them to produce the genetically flawless offspring, but still more viable than the cross hybrid like the liger. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(09-09-2018, 04:35 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Maybe the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion had already developed this unique strain of DNA that prevent them to produce the genetically flawless offspring, but still more viable than the cross hybrid like the liger.

That is an importnat point, in fact, the genetic study of Barnett et al. (2009) found that there was NO crosbreed between any of the three genetic populations of lions, even deeper, there was no genetic interchange between the Alsaka lions (P. spelaea) and the USA lions (P. atrox) despite they proximity, which suggest that even when the ice sheet was thin enough to allow all the other animals to cross between the populations, these two "lion" population did not intermix. We must not forget those results as are very important for a deep genetic analysis. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-09-2018, 04:41 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 04:35 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Maybe the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion had already developed this unique strain of DNA that prevent them to produce the genetically flawless offspring, but still more viable than the cross hybrid like the liger.

That is an importnat point, in fact, the genetic study of Barnett et al. (2009) found that there was NO crosbreed between any of the three genetic populations of lions, even deeper, there was no genetic interchange between the Alsaka lions (P. spelaea) and the USA lions (P. atrox) despite they proximity, which suggest that even when the ice sheet was thin enough to allow all the other animals to cross between the populations, these two "lion" population did not intermix. We must not forget those results as are very important for a deep genetic analysis.

So the wild animals could only cross with the members within the boundary of its species, and anything outside should be out of question even it is a sister species.

However, the Homo sapiens used to interbreed with the Homo neanderthalensis, even though this is a cross breed between two closely related species, and it is odd that Panthera spelaea and Panthera atrox didn't follow this pattern. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(09-09-2018, 04:47 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: So the wild animals could cross with the members within the boundary of its species, and anything outside should be out of question even it is a sister species.

However, the Homo sapiens used to interbreed with the Homo neanderthalensis, even though this is a cross breed between two closely related species, and it is odd that Panthera spelaea and Panthera atrox didn't follow this pattern.

Exactly and that is weird. Why Panthera atrox did not intermix with Panthera spelaea, if all the other species known do it? Humans, horses, bison and even bears (polar X grizzly hibrids) had intermix in the wild, but Barnett and his team found that these two great cats species did not do that. It is like if lions and tigers meet each other, they will naturally not intermix (despite the old Indian pictures, which are only art, not evidence of wild hybrids). It seems that P. atrox was diferente enough from P. spelaea to avoid even to mix each other, maybe could be even conflit between them if they meet each other. Interesting that nobody saw this excenario, expecially whan the information and conclusion of this study is published since 2009. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(09-09-2018, 04:53 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(09-09-2018, 04:47 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: So the wild animals could cross with the members within the boundary of its species, and anything outside should be out of question even it is a sister species.

However, the Homo sapiens used to interbreed with the Homo neanderthalensis, even though this is a cross breed between two closely related species, and it is odd that Panthera spelaea and Panthera atrox didn't follow this pattern.

Exactly and that is weird. Why Panthera atrox did not intermix with Panthera spelaea, if all the other species known do it? Humans, horses, bison and even bears (polar X grizzly hibrids) had intermix in the wild, but Barnett and his team found that these two great cats species did not do that. It is like if lions and tigers meet each other, they will naturally not intermix (despite the old Indian pictures, which are only art, not evidence of wild hybrids). It seems that P. atrox was diferente enough from P. spelaea to avoid even to mix each other, maybe could be even conflit between them if they meet each other. Interesting that nobody saw this excenario, expecially whan the information and conclusion of this study is published since 2009.

The outer difference between Panthera spelaea and Panthera atrox should be no more than that between the Polar bear and Brown bear, just look at their skull structure.

Maybe we shall wait for more evidence in order to draw the final conclusion. Reply