Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[tigerluver]

The Ngandong tiger has 3 long bones on record. The bones from Ngandong are very robust for all Panthera. The humerus, while of the length of an average Bengal/Amur male, is much more robust from top to bottom. The Ngandong femur is similarly very robust from top to bottom. The Wateolang humerus is long (not exceptionally), but is a bit more intriguing. It's distal robusticity is the same as a modern tiger's, but it diaphysis is almost as hefty as that of the humerus from Ngandong. The giant P. fossilis' proportional robusticity will remain unknown as it is a fragment. However, see this chart below:

*This image is copyright of its original author

The thickest distal ratio in the recent cave lion is about 0.277. In vK's distal diameter (so a straight line point to point measurement and not necessarily synonymous with greatest width) of 99 mm the Ngandong humerus has a ratio of about 0.280, pretty the same robusticity as the cave lion. If we take the distal width, which I measured to be about 101 mm, the distal width/bone length ratio is about 0.286. 

Width and diameter are often interchanged and while the meaning is a bit arbitrary and subjective for the author, here's the usual difference. Here's distal width (DEH):

*This image is copyright of its original author

Here's distal diameter (41):

*This image is copyright of its original author

The difference is subtle in the humerus as usually the two measurements are very close and as I've said before, often times authors interchange the two words as synonyms. 

Humerus to humerus, the giant Sabol fragment would obviously outsize the Ngandong humerus. From maximum to maximum, the Ngandong femur is probably around the same dimension as the largest P. fossilis. Unfortunately, the Ngandong sample is too small to make the same analysis I did for the cave lions in terms of body proportion. 

With numbers, a 450 mm humerus produces about a 470-490 mm femur for P. spelaea and P. leo, so we can assume P. fossilis would be similar. I tend to think the three biggest P. fossilis long specimens, namely an c. 192 mm metatarsal 3 of Argant, the humerus distal fragment of Sabol, and the 465 mm of Reichanau likely produce specimens of similar stature which would be taller than the 480 mm Ngandong tiger at the shoulder. 

Lengthwise, the Ngandong tiger was reported by vK to have a "proximal AP diameter" of 59 mm. This could indicate a very long animal as a anteroposterior elongation of the proximal joint of the femur could indicate a anteroposterior-wise long pelvis and thus a very long animal. Unfortunately, vK's measurement methods were unconventional and no sagittal photo of the femur exists so I can't with great certainty how this value would compare to other authorities. Nonetheless, I can try. The Ngandong femur has a proximal width of ~110 mm (vK reported a diameter of 94 mm but search through all the data in the world on feliforms and you will never find a cat in history that would have an proximal AP diameter 63% of its proximal latermodial width, that's just not a value cats can have). Let's say vK took the AP measurement from not the head, but the opposite side of the bone. Looking at cat bones, the proximal head of the femur is usually 95% of the depth than the opposite side of the proximal femur, thus it would not be illogical to infer that the Ngandong femur had a proximal head width of at least around 56 mm as well. Thus, at the minimum this Ngandong femur had a proximal head depth to bone length ratio of 0.117, about matching the most robust P. atrox femur from Merriam and Stock (1932) (2907-R-2). Tigers usually don't have this bone width, thus perhaps the Ngandong tiger had a deep hip jint, thus deep hip sockets, thus deep pelvis, and thus relatively longer/deep body for a tiger or any cat in general.

Overall, P. fossilis is likely taller, while P. soloensis longer. Mass is very difficult to figure out, as tigers have oddly high masses for their bones. Whether the Ngandong tiger(?) shares this trait is in research.

It's late so I've typo'd likely, please do forgive me. Reply