The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[GuateGojira]

(11-05-2018, 11:07 AM)Wolverine Wrote: @tigerluver , @GuateGojira probably you have heard about the famous liger Hercules, having shoulder height "only" 49 inches (125 cm) it weighted 418 kg, we could imagine what will be a weight of liger 135-140 cm tall. According other version this liger was 132 cm tall. Of course Hercules as a domestic animal was a bit overweight. 

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/herc..._n_3920158

*This image is copyright of its original author

125 cm is a huge height for any cat, in fact, only the largest Pleistocene "lion" like cats and the Ngandong tiger did reached this height. We can see how large is a cat of that height and weight.

On the other side, I HIGHLY doubt that any cat can/could reach 140 cm in shoulder height. Many ot the estimated sizes in some documents are incorrectly derived. I saw books that quote figures of up to 270 cm in head-body for the giant cave "lions" but at the same time they quote head-body length of 240-250 cm for modern lion and even 280 cm for modern tigers (sic!). Most of the time those papers don't even say how the sizes were derived or if these lengths reflect sizes taken in "straight line" or "along the curves presing the tape".

The biggest Panthera fossilis probably had a height of about 130 cm at the most, with Panthera atrox and Panthera spelaea (largest forms) at about 125 cm and the Ngandong tiger at about 120 cm. Modern tigers and lions average about 1 meter in height and the maximum reliable recorded are about 114 cm. Figures of up to 125 cm for modern lion are a gross exageration and came from incorrect interpretation of the measurements presented by Dr Smuts and his team in his document of 1980. Reply