Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[tigerluver]

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I made an equation which predicts condylobasal length from m1 and p4 measurements using jaguar skulls mentioned in Merriam and Stock (1932). I found that the p3 had essentially no correlation to skull size, while the m1 had a moderate correlation. Thus, for m1, I used equation values for CBL reconstruction, but for the p3 I used an average ratio.

From the m1 reconstructions, the largest CBLs for P. toscana and P. gombazoegensis of Bisnik were ~300 mm. The largest P. gombazoegensis CBL was 325 mm. Using modern jaguars from Mazak et al. (2013) as isometric comparison, these specimens weighed 130 kg, 130 kg, and 170 kg respectively.

From the p3 reconstructions, the largest P. toscana and P. gombazoegensis of Bisnik were 260 mm and 295 mm, respectively. The largest P. gombazoegensis CBL was 300 mm. These measurements translate to 85 kg, 120 kg, and 130 kg, respectively. 

Leopard-based isometric comparisons showed a much heavier animal. I will stick to the jaguar based estimations for now as it seems the common agreement is that these are old jaguars, as well as the fact that I used jaguar data for the CBL reconstructions. 

van Valkenberg's formula found the Bisnik m1 specimen to weigh 145 kg. Marciszak corrected this value in accordance with Hemmer by 1.20x to give a value of 180 kg. The correction has a statistic issue however, as allometry does not allow a single correction factor to be accurately used as we are actually on an exponential rather than linear scale.

Hemmer (2004) predicts P. gombazoegensis to weight 190 kg at the high end. Unfortunately I don't know his equation, but it most likely used the common approach of using literature masses with personal measurements. 

With that, does anyone know any detailed measurements of leopard skulls, including dentition? I'd like to explore my finding that the leopard-based estimate for these cats was much greater. Reply