Who is the "king" of tigers? - Bengal or Amur

[GuateGojira]

I think I can help a little more in this matter. The measurements of big cat skulls is also an important topic in the old litterature. In the beginning of the 20th century, most reliable hunters and naturalists said that a reliable method to measure a skull was to place the skull flat in a table and put it between uprights:

*This image is copyright of its original author

This give a straigh line measurement and could be reliable, however the problem is if the skull is been measured with the mandible or not, which will increase the length specially in lions (mandible can surpass slightly the frontal incisors in some cases), and even with no mandible, the incisors can cause other increase, which is also an important matter. That is why many old records from great cats and bears must be taken with caution. I don't know if the skulls measured by Stevenson Hamilton (record of 406 mm) were actually measured in this way. @peter, there is any clue regarding this in the book of Stevenson-Hamilton?

Most of the records of Rowland Ward book were taken in this form, however those taken by Mr Ward himself followed another method, check this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

In this image we can see that he is using calipers, not squares at the tips, and although he is measuring the zygomathic wide in this picture is more than obvious that he will use the same tool to measure the total length.

The method of Mr Ward is practically the same used by modern scientists, the only diference is that in modern times some use electronic tools:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Others still use the clasic calipers:

*This image is copyright of its original author

So, Mazák did used calipers, and he measured the skulls in this form, the reliable form, also used by Pocock (India), Hollister (East Africa) and Roberts (South Africa):

*This image is copyright of its original author

What is interesting is that with calipers it doesn't matter if the mandible is in the skull of not, because you only need to put the skull in a flat surface and the calipers do its job (check the picture of Rowland Ward again).

So, as long as the measurements are taken with calipers from the tips and not using squares, the measurement will be reliable. If you use squares there are many chances that the length will be artificially increased. Reply