Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[tigerluver]

I think he's a mix of the two. His size is well out of the range of even a large modern tiger. But his freak size may in some way be connected the tiger's historic maximum, freak size.

I feel the Ngandong tiger at max sizes was probably larger than modern tigers. Out of a handful of specimens, we already have such a large find. Thus I'd be inclined to say the 409 kg specimen was likely not a freak, rather something like 300 kg modern tiger.  

The Wahnsien tiger is much more similar in size to our modern tigers. I reconstructed the skull of a large molar we've discussed before (cannot remember which one), and my equations estimated a weight of about 313 kg, similar to our largest modern tigers. 

Good last point. The size discrepancy between the modern lion and cave lion indicates to me that the two species could not interbreed, and thus modern lions do not have those giant genes in the mix. On the other hand, the Ngandong tiger was a tiger , and it could freely interbreed with the modern tiger we know.

It's interesting that we've found 3 specimens of P. s. fossilis that approach 400 kg. It might be safe to say these specimens probably weren't freaks either. 

I feel that both the Ngandong tiger and the early cave lion probably give Smilodon populator a run for it's money in terms of size. I'll try to write might next about my thought on Smilodon. Reply