Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws

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peter

Co-owner of Wildfact

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Joined: Mar 2014

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#743

10-03-2017, 10:06 AM

(10-01-2017, 11:02 AM)johnny rex Wrote: Anyway, can anyone guess the measurements of the skull of Panthera t. acutidens that was posted by @GrizzlyClaws previously? @peter, any thoughts?

F - Size

Guate thought the skull could have measured 17,5 inches in greatest total length and 11,5 inches in width. My guess would be shorter and wider. Could have been twice as heavy as an average male Amur tiger, though. Its main feature is robustness. Never saw such massive teeth. Rostrum unsurpassed as well:

*This image is copyright of its original author

G - Subspecies

Only skulls of large male tigers belonging to Panthera tigris tigris and Panthera tigris altaica can exceed 15 inches in greatest total length. This means that the skull you posted belonged to a captive male Indian tiger or a captive male Amur tiger.

According to many, there are no Indian tigers outside of India. But a trainer I interviewed some years ago told me he had visited a facility in the US that had the largest tigers he had ever seen. He was sure they were pure Indian tigers. I have more information about Indian tigers in US facilities.

The first picture is the skull you posted. The second picture has the skull of a wild male Amur tiger with a total length of 16 inches. The third picture shows the skull of a captive male Indian tiger I measured. The last picture has the skull you posted alongside the skull of 'an average captive male tiger'.

Profilewise, the skulls in the first and third picture are similar. Topdownwise, the skull in the third and the fourth picture also are similar. The occiputs are a bit different, but the nasals are not. Same for the general structure. The skull in the second picture is different in most respects.

The conclusion is the skull you posted didn't belong to a captive male Amur tiger, but to a captive male Indian tiger.

This means that the assumption on no Indian tigers outside of India isn't correct. It could be that Indian tigers are no longer exported, but many were in the past. As it is possible that some of those who were exported a long time ago were not mixed with other subspecies, it can't be completely excluded that some facilities in the US have pure Indian tigers. If so, they were either inbred or not. If not, it means that a trade in pure Indian tigers can't be excluded. Could be a business in the US only, but it could be that facilities in other countries are involved. Doesn't mean that India could be involved, but it's clear that a few things need to be clarified.

*This image is copyright of its original author

H - Total length, weight and skull size of 19 male Indian tigers

I nearly forgot this one. It has info on 19 male Indian tigers shot between 1880-1954.

- The information on tiger 19 isn't correct regarding greatest total length, as it was measured 'over the bone', meaning the tape most probably followed the (curves of) the bone (length should be measured in a straight line).

- The first remark in the liner notes at the bottom (see -a-) has a typo. It said that the minimum skull length of the 7 tigers shot in Cooch Behar, the Duars and Assam was 368,30 mm., whereas it was 360,68 mm. The average skull length of these 7 tigers, as stated, was indeed 381,725 mm. (just over 15 inches).

- The body length of tigers 08 and 09 was measured in a straight line ('between pegs'). Tiger 09 had the widest skull of all. Judging from the circumference of the chest and the fore-arm, it must have been a very large animal.

- Although there seems to be no strong relation between body length and greatest skull length, the 7 long-skulled Cooch Behar tigers were 5 inches longer in total body length and at least (the biggest tiger wasn't weighed) 32,8 lbs. heavier than average.