South American cougar (Puma concolor concolor)

[Balam]

(05-19-2023, 10:18 AM)Styx38 Wrote:

(05-18-2023, 05:39 AM)Balam Wrote:

(05-18-2023, 05:26 AM)Styx38 Wrote: Anyway here is more of my buddy's exchange with Marlon du Toit.

Toit really does not know much about leopards since he is mixing the Nambian leopard with a Sabi Sands leopard.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Your "buddy" continues to spread misinformation and now you're spamming this cougar thread on his behalf because he can't do it for himself since he's banned.

The so-called 115 kg leopard was discarded from the study. It was only mention by Dr. Farhadina to make the clarification that the weight would not be included in the official average. He latter confirmed to me that he did not considered that weight to be reliable because the veterinary report stated it at 95 kg. How many times are we going to have to go over this? No scientific organization or leopard biologist for that matter maintains that leopards can surpass 100 kg in weight, as there are no cases in the scientific record from hundreds of leopards captured and weighed across their global range surpassing that threshold. It's not Du Toit the one who is spreading wrong information about leopards here.

Your "buddy" is going out of his way to harass the DMs of a renowned guide because he made a totally harmless and completely uncontroversial claim that didn't suit his biases. Does that seem to you like the behaviour of a mentally sane person?

Stop spamming this thread with your tired imaginary 115 kg leopard claims. This is a puma thread.

The 115 kg Leopard was confirmed by the actual vet who took the measurements. His name is Iman Memarian.

Luipaard made an audio recording of him confirming the 115 kg Leopard.

https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-modern-...#pid148847

While Marlon Du Toit did make a harmless comment, you guys should have not used his broad statement here since you already have measurements.


I understand  that cougars are bigger as a whole based on measurements, but I will make a reply since Pckts wants to show off that Patagonia cougars are bigger than leopards by using Marlon's generic claim as an argument on this thread.

That's not how any of this works.

The individual from the screenshot harassing Marlon's DM linked to a paper where an alleged 115 kg leopard was, once again, mentioned to be discarded from the official average of verified weights. The author of said paper later confirmed that the only record he has confidence of based on the written and documented veterinary report states the weight of the animal at 95 kg. Meaning that linking a source that actively discards that weight to prove it is intellectually lazy at best, and malicious (and likelier) at worse. It's blatant misinformation.

Imam Memarian has not provided any tangible proof of that alleged 115 kg value. He provided vague recollections of what he remembered based on casual and informal social media voice mails (that same channel that the individual making the misinformed claims liked to use to discredit jaguar weights from first-hand biologist sources that doesn't suit his biases).

In one of the voice notes that Memarian sent Andrea Vita, he's heard stating that the initial weight for the leopard was "115 or 110 kg, something like that". He doesn't even recall with certainty what the alleged initial weight was, but that didn't stop the individual in question from ignoring this clear red flag and continue spreading the claim (with no evidence) of the alleged 115 kg weight while utilizing the one source that discards it as "proof". Why go with 115 kg and not 110 kg initial weight? When it comes to jaguars he sure likes to push for the lowest possible figures, I wonder why that is.

Andrea actually received one last voice note from Memarian recently stating that he only had recollection of two weights. One of 98 kg taken at the vet before euthanasia, and one of 95 kg taken of a different scale by a university. He once again changed the script and is no longer vouching for the 115 kg claim.

In other words. There are a total of 0 written veterinary records providing evidence for the alleged 115 kg weight (why wouldn't they keep this datum on a sheet if it was really accurate? Especially if it was the first record for the animal's morphological condition), there is one official veterinary report stating his weight at 95 kg which Dr. Farhadina, the scientist who wrote the paper to dismiss the 115 kg claim, holds as the reliable figure, and we have almost every single stakeholder who has publicly commented on the weight of this leopard including the Persian Leopard Project stating the weight at 95 kg.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, of which none has been provided for what would be the weight of the first and only 100+ kg leopard. None. This is why that weight will never be included in any reputable scientific publication as the maximum figure for the species, regardless of how many people the fanatics decide to spam with the same misinformation over and over again. 

Since this is a cougar thread and to answer your point of Patagonian specimens. Marlon did not say anything incorrect, malicious, or controversial. You're just bitter that he didn't make a claim to prop up your favorite animal, but that doesn't warrant the discrediting your attempting here.

Marlon used readily available public information to state that he interacted with the 4th largest cat, which is recorded as such in Wikipedia. We know this is correct before the average values for cougars in the Rocky Mountains of Alberta are higher than the average values for the largest leopard subspecies in Central Asia. We also know that the largest cougar is slightly larger than the largest leopard reliably recorded.

The difference isn't great between these two species and the information is completely harmless, but that's just the reality of things. Reply