Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[GrizzlyClaws]

(04-15-2019, 10:22 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(04-15-2019, 09:55 PM)Sanju Wrote: What are "recent" weight estimates of other freak felids contestants American lion, Machairodus kabir, Amphimachairodus & Smilodon populator ... ?

For American "lion" Panthera atrox, the last one was the one from Christiansen & Harris (2009) with a weight of up to 351 kg, but there is one specimen that probably weighed more. No other new estimations appart from this.

For Machairodus and Amphimachairodus, the figures of over 400 kg seems to be very exagerated. The large skull of 415 is in fact less massive than that of a moder lions, so probably the real weight of this cats was less than those of the largest Pleistocene tigers and lions. Its bones are big, but not as massive as those of Smilodons.

For Smilodon populator, the last estimation came from Christiansen & Harris (2005) with weights of up to 400 kg for the largest ones. This is a short but very heavy and muscular cat.

The largest cat, with fossils available, is for the the Eurasian cave "lion" Panthera spealea fossilis. That skull of over 480 mm in length suggest a cat of about 400 kg. Certainly there are many fossils of the other lion-like cats and even none in the sample of giant  Panthera atrox in America is larger than it. However, the sample of Ngandong tigers is so small, that I do believe that the single femur found that already represent an especimen of c.370 kg is suggesting us that bigger specimens do existed.

What do you think about this new formula of 2016 which gave an output of 486 kg for the 480 mm femur?

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1b74/4a3f6bab9689b2de3267c3d9cf0787e23fb9.pdf


BTW, @tigerluver has already possessed a piece of fossil which is larger than the largest Ngandong tiger. And it is believed to be a much younger close relative of the Wanhsien tiger, also its skull could reach over 480 mm as well. Reply