Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws

[peter]

Interesting, Grizzly. You could well be right.

There is a positive relation between greatest total skull length and upper canine length in big cats, but I never read anything about it. My guess is it could be expressed in a formula of some kind. It's very likely that the formula will be different in every species.

I might give it a try, but I only measured the distance between the tip and the insertion in the upper jaw (not the entire length of the canine). In lions, the longest I measured was 67 mm. from the insertion to the tip. The greatest length of the skull was 378,00 mm (condylobasal length 326,00 mm. and zygomatic width 248,20 mm.). The owner of the skull was a captive male with a total length of 300,7 cm. in a straight line (head and body 216,7 cm. and tail 84,0 cm.). This records stands, as he was measured by Dr. P. van Bree himself (in 1974).

This giant was 280 kg (...) and probably compared to the lion WaveRiders saw in Kenia. My guess is the Kenian lion could have had a longer skull, as skulls of captive big cats usually are a bit shorter than those of their wild relatives. Judging from the photographs WaveRiders posted, the skull of the Kenian was more robust and heavier. The weight of the skull of the captive lion was 2,450 kg., but it wasn't defatted. Reply