Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[GuateGojira]

I agree 100%, Van Valkenburg dental formulas give underestimations and the skull ones give overestimations.

Other issue is the differences between species. We know that lions have longer molars than tigers, so with those formulas, they would produce "heavier" lions without taking in count those differences.

From my personal experience, I guess that the formulas of Legendre and Roth (1988) are better, at least they have give me reliable weights, for tigers at least.

Normally scientists use skull and dental measurements because they are the most common fossils, but the problem is the real correlation between these bones and the actual body mass of the animals.

Weight is a tricky business. Reply