There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
(02-06-2022, 02:52 AM)LoveAnimals Wrote: I guess we only have 7 specimens that can be attributed to this giant pleistocene tiger.
What's impressive is how small the sample is. I mean the sample size is very small but we already have specimen estimates that can be 400+ kg. Just the frequency of this makes me wonder how big the largest specimen ever could be.
Fully agree with this. I mean, what is the possibility that a dwarf or a giant can be fossilize? Taking in mind this, we can guess that normally the average sized specimens are more regular in the fossil record and only with very big samples (like the ones of Panthera atrox, Panthera spelaea, and T. rex, for example) we can actually know the extreme sizes. Under this idea, we can guess that the 10 known specimens of the Ngandong tiger are around the average size and that maybe bigger specimens could exist that we still don't found. The Borneo tiger of the Pleistocene is a good example and I can guess that specimens of its same size could live also in Java.
I may add a creppy thing here that maybe not anyone remember. The fossils in the Ngandong site are believe that are the rest of animals killed by early hominids, some of theme are other hominids too. It was like an old graveyard of killings!
I could say that the Ngandong tiger is like the Spinosaurus, very few specimens and until some one actually go to Java and began to search more information and make it famous (like NatGeo done it), it will continue to be an enigma.