Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[GuateGojira]

(09-30-2021, 12:33 AM)LoveAnimals Wrote: @tigerluver

What is the max shoulder height for Ngandong tiger? Up to 125 cm?

Good question, let me tell you that the estimation of up to 120 cm was made by me, based in the fact that I estimated a head-body length of c.230 cm (straight line) for the largest specimen (femur of 480 mm, and using pictures of other tiger skeletons) and the fact that shoulder height of tigers is about 50% of the head-body. New calculations of Tigerluver put the head-body at about 240 cm (straight line) as far I remember, so the shoulder height is still estimated at 120 cm.

Now, please remember that we don't have a complete specimen of the Ngandong tiger, we have at least 7 bones from diferent specimens, from them only 4 are from limbs and one skull, one humerus and the skull are of the same size as the largest modern tigers recorded, while the other humerus and the femur surpass the size of any modern tiger.

The other fossils are dentitions and an incomplete mandible, this last one was estimated at c.270 mm, which is big, but other estimations made by the dentition set it at about c.260 mm (same size as the biggest modern tigers). However an analisys of the relation of the dentition and the skull length made by @tigerluver showed that the relation is very weak, so until someone actually measure the mandible and made a final estimation, we can only guess its size. I don't remember if Dr Koenigswald did measured the mandible, Tigerluver has the book, maybe he can give us more light on this. 

Now, it is interesting to remember that a fossil of a partial mandible from Borneo is actually the biggest tiger recorded at this moment, sadly is still unnamed so for the moment is just classified as Panthera tigris sp. from the Pleistocene of Borneo. Reply