The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[tigerluver]

(12-03-2017, 11:56 PM)tigerluver Wrote: Panthera atrox in South America?

A new paper was just published stating that a fossil pantherine of South America, known as P. onca mesembrina, has been misidentified at least a few times. The true identity of this cat they assert is Panthera atrox. Their assertion is based on morphological similarities of the specimen to P. atrox rather than the jaguar. The skull they reference is the best example of their point. The paper.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

Take a look at the above photos. Which species does the skull in the top photo looks most similar too? Based on visibility of the incisive foramina and the nasal shape, the authors conclude that the skull is actually of P. atrox.

At first take, the logic looks good. However, Dr. Ross Barnett disagrees, mentioning on twitter that cats of these areas have been DNA tested and shown to be jaguar. He cited this paper. 

The authors in a way already had a response built into the paper to such a rebuttal, stating that the ancient jaguar and American lion would have shared the domain. So what does everyone think? Is this skull of a jaguar or an American lion?

Here is a followup on the controversial skull from South America. I measured the skull's GSL (c. 340 mm) and ZW (c. 249.5 mm) from the reconstructed figure. I then ran a principal component analysis with the skull (in green, labeled P. o. m.), P. atrox (in blue), and P. onca (in dark pink). Here is the result:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The controversial skull falls just inside the statistical range of P. atrox while also falling well out of the range for (modern) P. onca. Such can mean two things. One, the skull groups in P. atrox, and is thus a member of P. atrox. Two, with the skull falling at the edge of the range of P. atrox, it is from a different, unknown species/group (perhaps an archaic P. onca ancestor?). In either scenario, the skull falls out of the possibility of at least a modern P. onca. Reply