Ngandong Tiger (Panthera Tigris soloensis)

[GuateGojira]

Short note - On the size of NM2641:

I made a quick review about how I calculated the body size of the specimen of Ngandong tiger (Panthera tigris soloensis) classified as NM2641, popularly known as "the giant tiger femur".

Using the only database available in litterature, the result is this:

*This image is copyright of its original author

This is the result that I used in my previous size estimation, a head-body of c.230 cm. However, in the next image I used real tiger skeletons in order to calculate the size of the tiger if the femur measure 480 mm. These are the results:

*This image is copyright of its original author

As you can see, there are several specimens but I only know the sex and age of two of them, so probably there are mixed ages, sex and subspecies on it. This means that the result is only suggestive. However, the resulting figure is of c.240 cm in head-body straight line, which is bigger than my previouis estimation. However, if we use the mode with is about 216 cm, the result will be c.235 cm straight, which is close to the value that I got previously. So this give you an idea about the size estimation for this giant specimen, even the smaller value (from the female tiger - 225 cm HBL straight) is already larger than most modern records from Bengal and Amur tigers, and the biggest value (young male - 254 cm HBL straight) is a record itself.

Now, about the shoulder height, if I use the skeletons I got a mean of 122 cm (range: 118 - 129; n=8) but we need to take in count that the posture of the skeleton and the reconstruction make very difficult to get an accurate value. In this case, I decided to play safe and as we know that shoulder height in tigers is about 1/2 of head-body straight, I estimate a shoulder height of c.120 cm using the value from the skeletons, which seems correct based in all the calculations. About the tail, we know that normally tigers had a tail of 1/2 of head-body, so it will be also about 120 cm, no big deal here.

So, with this data, we can say that the tiger where the femur came had a calculated had-body length of 240 cm "straight", a standing shoulder height of 120 cm and tail of the same size giving a total length straight of 360 cm. This means that I will need to update my datasheet about this subspecies.

On the weight section, calculations are between 363 kg (my calculation) to 380 kg (Dr Per Christiansen, not yet published), and also over 400 kg, depending of the source.

*This image is copyright of its original author

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