Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[tigerluver]

(11-18-2018, 07:58 PM)johnny rex Wrote:

(11-18-2018, 10:27 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: I speculate that the Pleistocene tiger might also have a 1:1 skull/femur ratio.

Otherwise, the femur of the Padang specimen would simply become an outrageous outlier which looks very unlikely.

Maybe the Ngandong specimen also possesses a 470-480 mm skull like the Padang specimen, since the body proportion of the tiger might also vary over time.

Can I see the photo of that Padang specimen skull around 470-480 mm? Is it a specimen of Panthera tigris soloensis?

As @GrizzlyClaws stated, it is a fragmented piece. It is younger than the Ngandong tiger by a few hundred thousand years.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

At the estimated base of the enamel (estimated due to the mandible being missing around most of the canine), the lower canine crown height (CH) is 67 mm. Christiansen (2008) posted the average measurements of condylobasal length and lower canine crown height that give us one possible estimate of the condylobasal length (CBL) of the mandible.

*This image is copyright of its original author

If we use all tigers, the mandible's CBL would be estimated as:

CBL fossil = CH fossil/CH extant  CBL extant = 67 mm/43.59 mm * 276.9 mm = 426 mm

Greatest skull length (GSL) is generally 1.11x CBL at minimum, for a GSL of ~472 mm.

Now if we only use male tigers (which have shorter canines for their skulls) we get:

CBL fossil = CH fossil/CH extant  CBL extant = 67 mm/44.50 mm * 291.9 mm = 440 mm

Greatest skull length (GSL) is generally 1.11x CBL at minimum, for a GSL of ~488 mm.

It is beyond question that the mandible is from a male, so perhaps the male to male comparison is of more use. Reply