Smilodon populator

[GuateGojira]

(05-04-2022, 11:04 AM)jrocks Wrote: so are these weights right for the largest specimens of each prehistoric cat

smilodon populator 16.07 inch skull at around 490 kg if isometric scaling is used to scale up the 15.4 inch skull specimen to the 16.07 inch one

american lion 18.4 inch skull at 375 kg

natadomeri lion 19.08 inch skull at 390 kg

ngandong tiger 480 mm femur at 368 kg, i think i saw somewhere that there was a huge mandible found of a bornean tiger is it known much does that specimen is

also how did m. giganteus compare to these cats as i cant find much on them

I don't think that Smilodon populator weighed more than 450 kg even in a extream case, not even for the biggest skull of 408.4 mm in GSL.

The skull LACMHC 2900-3 for Panthera atrox is the second biggest from the sample known with a CBL of 410.4 mm and its weight is calculated at 351 kg, so the bigger one Univ.Calif.14001 with a CBL of 424.3 mm, which is marginally larger, probably was around 360 kg. 

The Natodameri lion skull had a basal length of 380 mm which is smaller than the biggest Panthera atrox skulls, which suggest a lesser body mass, and I estimate that could be about 340 kg.

The Ngandong tiger was estimated at 368 kg by me, but an unpublished information from Dr Per Christiansen suggest a body mass of 380 kg.

Amont its genus, Amphimachairodus giganteus was big, but not extraordinary, with a shoulder height of up to 110 cm which match those from modern lions and tigres (remember that this genus had relative longer legs), with a biggest skull with a basal length of 315 mm (Turner & Anton, 1997), and a GSL of up to 363 mm (Sotnikova, 1992), it is in the range of the modern great cats, so probably a mass of 260-270 kg will be ok.

Maybe these figures are not as impresive as the ones proposed in the internet, but we must take in count that modern lions and tigers had average weights between 190 - 200 kg and those specimens are already big by any standard. Reply