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Wanhsien tiger ~
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http://www.scribd.com/doc/201368987/Valv...Data-Sheet
~This document presents the basic description of the famous Wanhsien tiger (Panthera tigris acutidens), which was a large subspecies of tiger that lived in the Pleistocene of China. Contrary to previous description in the web, this tiger was of the same size than modern Amur and Bengal tigers, although it had larger metapodials.  
The southern population is the only group that we have the available study. And based on the study, they are about the same size as the modern Amur and Bengal.
The northern population hasn't been studied yet, but based on the fossil materials from the private collection, it showed that they have very large and robust skull. However, we only need the fossil materials of the northern population to be available for study.
How does this tiger stack up to the other ancient tiger (name starts with Ngo------ Tiger, I dont know how to spell it.)
(12-12-2014, 09:27 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: How does this tiger stack up to the other ancient tiger (name starts with Ngo------ Tiger, I dont know how to spell it.) Based on the private collection, some Wanhsien tigers look like brute, it even makes the large male Bengal from Nepal looks gracile in comparison.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  (12-12-2014, 09:27 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: How does this tiger stack up to the other ancient tiger (name starts with Ngo------ Tiger, I dont know how to spell it.)The Wanhsien tiger (Panthera tigris acutidens) was the subspecies of tiger that originated from the Second wave of Sunda tigers to the mainland. Apparently, they suppressed the "old" form of the original China tiger (and could also probably extirpated the old Longdan "tiger" too). This new tiger form was larger and with better carnivore adaptations. With time, at about 150,000 years ago, these tigers returned to the Sunda shelf with a Third wave, this time, they suppressed (or mixed) the original form of Sunda tigers and produced the Ngandong tiger. However, at this time, the Wanhsien tigers were already large, so when they arrived to the Sunda, they reached incredible dimensions. One important point is that GrizzlyClaws is correct, the only published specimens are those from the "southern" area, although other partial specimens from the north of China are also known. The problem is that there are practically no long bones and the few available with the few skulls, are very small. The most common fossils are dentition and although they seems larger in comparison with modern tigers (Kurten describe it like that), there are some exceptional specimens from Indian and Russia that reached its size. What we need is the size of the huge skull and other large bones that are in private collections, that will be interesting as they seems to be HUGE, but for the moment, the only confirmed giant is the Ngandong tiger from Java. Finally, after the Toba eruption in Sumatra, about 78,000 years ago, the last population of Wanhsien tigers that survived in the north of Indochina-South of China, was the one that originated all the modern Mainland tiger populations. In a form, we can say that the Wanhsien tiger never get entirely extinct, they only adapted to its new environment i the form of the present tiger. Just one final thing, don't confuse the Longdan "tiger" (Panthera zdanskyi) with the Ngandong tiger (Panthera tigris soloensis). The first one is an earlier relative of the tiger, a sister species, that existed in China in the beginning of the Pleistocene. The Ngandong tiger was a true tiger that existed in Java in the late Pleistocene. In one occasion, Asad (the liar of the lion fans) tried to create a confusion about this, but I destroyed him and cleared the confusion. I put this again, just in case.  (12-12-2014, 10:28 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:(12-12-2014, 09:27 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: How does this tiger stack up to the other ancient tiger (name starts with Ngo------ Tiger, I dont know how to spell it.) I would like to know the measurements of the Bengal tiger skull. Seems very broad and massive.
That skull is from the famous Sauraha male. Sadly, there are no measurements from it, although it seems very large. Dr Charles McDougal in his book "The Face of the Tiger" report that the largest skull that he have measured in Nepal was of 15 inches (381 mm) in greatest length and 11 inches (279 mm) in zygomatic wide. I guess that the skull of the Sauraha male was probably about the same size.
 (12-13-2014, 12:07 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:(12-12-2014, 09:27 PM)'Pckts' Wrote: How does this tiger stack up to the other ancient tiger (name starts with Ngo------ Tiger, I dont know how to spell it.)The Wanhsien tiger (Panthera tigris acutidens) was the subspecies of tiger that originated from the Second wave of Sunda tigers to the mainland. Apparently, they suppressed the "old" form of the original China tiger (and could also probably extirpated the old Longdan "tiger" too). This new tiger form was larger and with better carnivore adaptations. With time, at about 150,000 years ago, these tigers returned to the Sunda shelf with a Third wave, this time, they suppressed (or mixed) the original form of Sunda tigers and produced the Ngandong tiger. However, at this time, the Wanhsien tigers were already large, so when they arrived to the Sunda, they reached incredible dimensions. Correction to the time in bold, a new study shows the Ngandong tiger lived around 345 ka (143 ka-546 ka). I wonder if that changes the evolutinary timeline. Have the Wahnsien specimens or faunal levels been actually dated or simple guesstimations?
@Guate
In regards to this statement "Just one final thing, don't confuse the Longdan "tiger" (Panthera zdanskyi) with the Ngandong tiger (Panthera tigris soloensis). The first one is an earlier relative of the tiger, a sister species, that existed in China in the beginning of the Pleistocene. The Ngandong tiger was a true tiger that existed in Java in the late Pleistocene. In one occasion, Asad (the liar of the lion fans) tried to create a confusion about this, but I destroyed him and cleared the confusion. I put this again, just in case." What happened to the Longdan tiger? Are there no big cat species that is a direct ancester to it? Are all tigers directly related to the Ngandong Tiger, than? (12-14-2014, 01:44 AM)'Pckts' Wrote: @Guate The Longdan tiger probably got displaced by the true tiger, and they became fully extinct with no any descendant left. The direct pure descendants of the Ngandong tiger are the Javan tiger and the Bali tiger, whereas Sumatran tiger is their hybrid descendants. So i say that Sumatran is the partial modern descendant of the Ngandong tiger. (12-13-2014, 10:12 PM)'tigerluver' Wrote: Correction to the time in bold, a new study shows the Ngandong tiger lived around 345 ka (143 ka-546 ka). I wonder if that changes the evolutinary timeline. Have the Wahnsien specimens or faunal levels been actually dated or simple guesstimations?That is true, the new study suggest a date of that range. About the evolutionary line, I think that nothing should change. I mean, some posts ago I wondered if the Wanhsien tiger actually developed different forms in the looooong time that they lived in mainland. With the new data, we can guess that the third wave of tigers to the Sunda happened earlier than we think before, but the event is the same. What we most re-evaluate is the time that the two populations were together and it seems that it was much longer than our previous statements. With this, I can guess that the differences between mainland and Sunda tigers were smaller in a genetic level, suggesting a closer "subspecies" differentiation (75% rule of Kitchener), rater than "species". Finally, about the Wanhsien tiger, I have not found a complete study of the timeline, only the statements of Brongersman and Hooijer, so I guess that the time statements are just guesstimates, like most of the old dating studies. (12-14-2014, 01:44 AM)'Pckts' Wrote: @GuateAccording with Mazák et al. (2010), this sister species of the tiger evolved from the same ancestor, but formed a different species. There are several fossils labeled as "tigers" in China, all of them teeth and fragments, but none has been correctly studied and are probably from other species. We most remember also Panthera youngi, anteriorly labeled as a posible "lion", but now classified as a different species or a relative of the tiger or the leopard, like the more basal Panthera palaeosinensis, which has a great resemblance to the lion and the leopard, but in Asia. I found very difficult to believe that three Panthera species lived together in China at about 2.55-2.16 MYA. So, I think and this is my personal guess, that the "tigers" in mainland, before the arrival of the Sunda ones, were a mix between a basal tiger species and those of the Longdan species, and I also think that Panthera youngi was not a lion, like Harrrinton think, but probably also part of the basal tiger species. Based in the more complete fossils of the Sunda shelf, I think that the "pure" tigers evolved in this are, in Java, at about 2-1.6 MYA, and they suppressed the old form in China, like the basic theory state. After all, the fossils in Java are barely different than those from the modern species, based in the description of Brongersman. I can finish with this idea: The basal tiger in China and the other cats (zdanskyi and youngi) from this time were probably of the same species (deeper studies can confirm, or un-confirm, this), the one extirpated by the true tiger, that fully evolved in the Sunda. I put this theory, based in the scanty and confusing fossil record in China and the relative more complete record in Java. |
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