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Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

Indonesia WaveRiders Offline
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tigerluver
 
in the last couple of weeks I took some of my spare time to read this thread as well as some parts of old threads in AVA related to body size and mass estimates of Pleistocene Ngandong tiger Panthera tigris soloensis.
 
I would like first to highlight that I appreciated a lot your commitment and I wish you all the best for your studies. However with the hope it could be useful for you I have to say that when scientific analyses are driven not only by state of knowledge, experience and science, but also by some conscious bias and a perhaps unconscious will to arrive at a particular result, these analyses can lead to erroneous considerations and erroneous results even by significant extent. History of science is full of biased analyses, so you should not be too surprised if you fell into this trap as I believe you did.
 
In the analyses I have seen you have been doing in the last couple of years or so and the ones in this thread I noticed a considerable number of conceptual mistakes. I took a list of them and I could go through all of them if you like.
 
You came to the so far conclusion that the 480 mm Ngandong femur tiger individual weighed 500 kg. That individual is estimated by all of us to have been approximately 2300 mm and 2350 mm at most in straight head-and-body length, meaning 100 mm and no more then 150 mm longer then the largest (2210 mm) and biggest from Dunbar Brander. This Bengal tiger was estimated by him to have weighed around 270 kg and I add perhaps up to approximately 290 kg empty for a very bulky tiger of that length.
 
Therefore for an individual of a Pleistocene tiger for which there is no actual definitive evidence it was overall build more massively then modern Indian/Nepal tigers you have added over 200 kg on top of the Dunbar Brander biggest tiger. Or that a tiger approximately 400 mm longer then the Sauraha male would weigh approximately twice as him at empty stomach (likely around 250-260 kg). It is a clear non-sense.
 
You believe such a tiger would be even more massive then a coastal Alaska brown bear as long as 2300-2350 mm in straight line in head-and-body length (for such a length they normally weigh less then half a ton in the Spring unless really huge in body build).
 
Your tiger would likely look as much massive or even more  massively build then him.




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An important point is that I am a bit amazed in the last couple of years nobody really contested your results, which is a bit strange, particularly when AVA poster Ursus arctos middendorffi was around as I noticed he has some good knowledge in allometric regressions and general considerations. No contests resulted in the weight estimate of the largest Pleistocene Ngandong tiger fossil individual to inflate from the sensible estimates provided by myself and other posters at around 300-330 kg as it was the case in January 2012 when I stayed around AVA to the 500 kg suggested now, even more then estimates of 478.6 kg from Volmer (2005) and 470 kg from Hertler & Volmer (2007).
 
Furthermore I am very much amazed nobody including you do realize what was the body size of a Pleistocene lion with a 192 mm MT3 as well as the body size and massiveness of very many fossil lions including both Panthera leo fossilis and Panthera leo spelaea. There is no need to study the thousands of fossil lion remains as I did to understand that. I could list and provide you details of very many Panthera leo fossilis, Panthera leo spelaea and Panthera leo atrox bones of very large size. I also state that there is no evidence of higher cursoriality of Panthera leo fossilis and Panthera leo spelaea with respect of modern lions. My studies based on a very large amount of fossil remains suggest that the Eurasian Pleistocene lions were if anything slightly less cursorial then the modern lion. I am also not fully convinced of the significantly higher cursoriality of Panthera leo atrox with respect of modern lion as from conclusion of Wheeler & Jefferson (2009). Although possible I believe further evidence is needed for a firmer conclusion while for Panthera leo spelaea we already know quite a lot.
 
I can see that nearly any comments (not only yours) related to Panthera leo fossilis and Panthera leo spelaea are in the direction to push down their size and massiveness despite the enormous amount of evidence shown in literature suggesting the opposite. I noticed in particular in talks by GuateGojira, GrizzlyClaws and you the continuous dwarfing of Panthera leo spelaea following the most bizarre statements: transitional forms, final forms as large as modern lions or a bit more at most, any large bone or large skull is not spelaea but fossilis, the giant lion genes are lost and are not in the modern lion, etc. etc. I found all these comments very bizarre. The skull of ca. 475 mm and 451 mm lengths, the 470 mm femur are Panthera leo spelaea remains dated not earlier then MIS 6 (Late Saalian). They cannot be Panthera leo fossilis as this form ended with MIS 9 (Holsteinian Interglacial). All “transitional forms” (anything is evolving and is transitional) are Panthera leo spelaea and there are Panthera leo spelaea individuals even larger then the 475 mm skull individual. There are also quite large individuals even till at least the middle of the last Glacial.

I also remind people that there is no general consensus if Pleistocene lions were a different species then modern lions. Sometimes an author comes out with something and you take that for grant if you like it or reject if you do not like it. This is a naïf scientific approach, but I am not surprised. You should have talked or talk with Turner, Kurten, Hemmer and other eminent Palaeontologists before being so sure that the Pleistocene lion was a different species then modern lion.
 
One thing I state for sure is that apart from body size and body build Pleistocene lions show many more close similarities to modern lions then likely any other two felids compared (definitely within pantherinae). Pleistocene lions and modern lions are really remarkable similar in all compartments. Also the concepts of paleontological species and biological species are different and you should not forget that (for instance brown bears and polar bears interbreed and produce fertile offspring despite they split during the Middle Pleistocene and are different species).
 
Finally there is no common name for Pleistocene lions other then cave lion or steppe lion and American lion. How do you want to call them cave or steppe tiger (they would immediately gain 100 or 200 kg in that case)?
 
 
One more note.
 
Somebody stated I mentioned in AVA in January 2012 a ca. 440 mm skull as a Panthera leo spelaea skull. It is clear that I talked it is a Panthera leo fossilis skull and I told the story behind it. Any palaeontologist with carnivore and felid expertise could very easily understand I was talking of the famous Mauer skull, described by Wurm in 1912. The original greatest length of that skull (with an apparent slightly broken sagittal crest) was given by Wurm at 431 mm. Then Kurten came and provided that length at 442 mm (likely estimating the full length of the sagittal crest and not re-measuring the skull). This figure has been universally accepted. My greatest length estimate of that skull based on its consylobasal length or basal length are within less 1 mm from the length provided by Kurten. The Mauer individual was an average size Cromerian lion.

I also estimate the 465 mm ulna Panthera leo fossilis individual from Mosbach as an individual above average size but not particularly large.

The 470 mm femur Panthera leo spelaea individual was a large individual, but not very large. A Panthera leo fossilis individual with such a femur would have been just very slightly above average.

 
                      WaveRiders
 

 
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Messages In This Thread
RE: Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines - WaveRiders - 03-02-2015, 01:21 PM
Sabertoothed Cats - brotherbear - 06-11-2016, 11:59 AM
RE: Sabertoothed Cats - peter - 06-11-2016, 04:28 PM
Ancient Jaguar - brotherbear - 01-04-2018, 12:45 AM



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