American Lion (Panthera atrox)

[GuateGojira]

(06-18-2022, 01:25 AM)jrocks Wrote: oh wow i never knew there was a 14.87 inch fatalis skull, i thought the largest one was BC-067A which is 14.05 inches from boneclones, because of that i think there is for sure a populator skull out there which is even larger than bonaerensis 10-1 as populator is much larger than fatalis, although that is unproven til a bigger skull is found
oh wait 377.9 mm was the gsl of the 2nd largest fatalis skull, whats the gsl for the largest fatalis skull

No, let me explain. The biggest skull from S. fatalis is 2001-24 with a GSL of 377.9 mm. The second one is 2001-225 with a GSL of 376.3 mm. Now, as there is no picture of 2001-24 I used the picture of 2001-225 for reference and I scaled it to the size of 2001-24, that is the thing.

About the difference, I was checking that the common size quoted for S. fatalis it maybe actualy the "average" and not the "maximum". Time ago @epaiva shared and email with the body dimentions of the skeletons at the George C. Page Museum in California, these ones:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

This is the email:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Just becarefull with the inches, as the aproximation between milimiters and inches may cause exagerations, like you can see in the skull of Panthera atrox, which should be 18.4 inches, not 19 inches.

Here is the often quoted size for S. fatalis:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Now, check that the sizes are basically the same, but when we see the email of Epaiva we can see that the skull asociated is not the maximum reported, but close to the average reported by Berta (1985) which is of 336 mm, she used the 25 skulls reported by Merriam & Sotck (1932). In that case, the specimen 2001-24 should belong to a bigger specimen.

If this is correct, is possible that we had underestimate the body size of S. fatalis as we are using the "average" body size as if it was the "maximum" body size, you can check that the difference between S. fatalis and S. populator in skull and long bones are just like the ones between and Indochina tiger and a Bengal tiger, it is not as dramatic as we may thing. Check the tables from Berta (1985):

*This image is copyright of its original author

So it seems that mayor difference will be in the robustness of the bones and not so much at the body dimentions, as the study of Christiansen & Harris (2005) suggest. It will be good to see which specimens they used in the study. Reply