Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws

[peter]

(02-04-2018, 08:45 AM)johnny rex Wrote: That skull length of tiger no.19, is it accurate or inaccurate @peter ?

The measurement is out, Johnny. The method used to measure the skull was unsound.

This post has a bit more about skull length and body length in tigers. I'll start with a quote from the book 'Jungle Trails in Northern India' (Sir J. Hewett, first published in 1938). It's about skull 19.

a - Sir John Hewett on skull 19 in the last table of post 38 of this thread 
 
" ..  Next morning we found the tiger dead, about sixty yards from where he was fired at. I have never seen a finer tiger. He measured 10 feet 2 inches, and must have been an inch or two longer had the tape been put over him before he had got stiff. He was in his winter coat and very perfectly marked. The measurements of his skull as given by Messrs. Spicer & Co., of Leamington, who set up the skin, are in their words 'over the bone' as follows ... " ('Jungle Trails of Northern India', Sir John Hewett, the 2008 reprint, pp. 180).

It is about the part in black ('over the bone'). I never heard of a skull measured in this way. If we add the width and weight, the conclusion is that the skull, very probably, was measured 'over curves'. 

The greatest total length of a skull has to be measured in a straight line ('between pegs'), and not 'over the bone'. This means the result of the measurement is out. For this reason, skull 19 was removed from the original table. 

Although post 38 of this thread still has the original table, a remark was added about skull 19. I thought it would be good enough, but your question proves it would be better to replace the table. I'll do it when I have time. Thanks for the reminder, Johnny.  

b - The length of skull 19 if it would have been measured in the correct way

Accuracy always is important, but it is about the method used. Tigers still are measured 'over curves' today (even by biologists), but in skulls it isn't about measuring curves, but straight lines.

I measured a few skulls in the way described above, and concluded that the skull of the 10.2 tiger could have been about 14 inches (355,6 mm.) in greatest total length if it would have been measured in the correct way. This means that the skull was of average length.

c - Relation between body length and skull length in tigers 

Tigers of large subspecies have longer skulls than tigers of small subspecies, but the relation between body length and skull length it isn't very strong. Individual variation is pronounced. An example.

The longest Indian tiger I know of was 10.7 'between pegs', but the greatest length of his skull was 14 inches. In his paper on tigers in the JBNHS (Vol. XXXIII), Pocock (pp. 536-537) mentions an old male Sumatran tiger with a total length (head and body and tail) of just over 8.3 (252,73 cm.). His skull (340,4 mm.), however, almost compared to the skull of the 'finest tiger' Sir John Hewett saw. 

There are many examples of large tigers wild small skulls and small tigers with large skulls.

d - A few photographs of male Sumatran tigers with large skulls

Sumatran tigers have the shortest skulls of all remaining tiger subspecies. It's the only subspecies where males and females overlap in this respect. Individual variation, however, is pronounced. The longest skull of a wild male Sumatran tiger I measured was exactly 350,00 mm. in greatest total length. Here's a few more male Sumatran tigers with large skulls.

d1 - Captive male Sumatran tiger (Czech Republic, if I remember correctly). The photograph was first posted by Amnon in the captivity thread:

*This image is copyright of its original author

d2 - Captive male Sumatran tiger. Photograph taken in the 19th century:

*This image is copyright of its original author

d3 - Male Sumatran tiger from a circus. I think it was 'Chester', who featured in one of Beatty's books:

*This image is copyright of its original author

d4 - This lame male was a notorious man-eater:

*This image is copyright of its original author

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