The Java Tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica)

[peter]

(09-27-2015, 02:08 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: @peter, sorry for disturb you again, but I have a doubt.

I was collecting all the skulls reported for the Javanese tigers in literature, and I think that is very weird that J. H. Mazák did not included the large male skull of 349 mm in his document. However, he mentions that used the data from V. Mazák, which do measured this skull.

My question to you is:
I know that you measured this specimen, here is the picture:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, I will like to know if the measurements reported by Mazák (1983) and Sody (1947) are accurate with your own. I see no reason to exclude this specimen.

Help me please.

From left to right: greatest total length - condylobasal length - zygomatic width - rostrum - pm4

Sody, H.J.V. (1949)                                                        349,00 - 303,00 - 246,00 - 105,00 - 35,00

Mazak, V. (1983)                                                             349,00 - 303,00 - 246,00 - 099,40 - 00,00

Broekhuijsen, P.G. (2005)                                           345,50 - 290,00 - 245,80 - 107,00 - 35,00


You know all about Sody, as I posted scans of his tables. I'm not sure when V. Mazak measured the skull, as there are 3 editions of his book. I have the third and last edition. There is, however, no question that Mazak measured the skull himself. Hoogerwerf, by the way, wrote the skull was 350,00 mm. in greatest total length when he found it in 1938. 

I measured the skull more than once, because the results of my measurements were a bit different from those of Sody and Mazak. To be sure, I asked someone working in the Naturalis Museum to measure the skull as well. Similar results. How explain the difference in greatest total length and, especially, condylobasal length?

One is it is known skulls shrink a bit with age. The Hoogerwerf skull is from 1938. Two is I measured the condylobasal length in the way I explained before. I turned the skull upside down and then measured the distance between the front edge of the premaxillary bone (just behind the incisors) and the posterior edge of the condylae. I know others measure this distance with the skull placed on the table in a normal position (not turned upside down) and it could be this explains the difference. I don't know, because I never tried the other method. I did notice that the main difference between my measurements and those of others always is most outspoken in condylobasal length. My measurements nearly always are a bit (a few mm.) shorter. My advice is to use the measurements made by Sody and Mazak, as both were qualified and very experienced.

However. There is a difference between them as well. In Mazak's table, the maximum rostral width recorded for male skulls of P.t. sondaica was 99,4 mm. (I assume this is the rostral width of the Hoogerwerf skull, but I am not sure), whereas Sody wrote it was 105,00 mm. Very strange. My measurement was 107,00 mm. I again asked someone working for the Naturalis Museum to help out and he too recorded a distance of about 107 mm. (slightly less). It apparently depends on how the rostrum is measured. Nearly everyone seems to use a slightly different method. If it isn't the method, it is the way it is applied. Remember I took my time measuring skulls (30-60 minutes for each skull). I know others do it much faster.

Anyhow. The skull Hoogerwerf found is larger than all other Javan skulls. The upper skull without the mandibula (missing) was 1,315 kg. A skull of a wild male lion in the collection of the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, although longer (GTL 372,46 mm.), had a similar width (248,01 mm.). The upper skull was 1,350 kg., whereas the mandibula was 0,730 kg. My guess is the Hoogerwerf skull, when complete, would have exceeded the heaviest I weighed of this subspecies (almost 1,9 kg.), but it is just a guesstimate. It depends on the individual. I saw short and massive skulls and I saw long and tender skulls. Reply