Smilodon populator

[jrocks]

(05-18-2022, 03:53 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(05-18-2022, 02:35 AM)jrocks Wrote: found it Sherani mentions it on page 15, for the 408.4 mm specimen does anyone know how much it weighed if the christiansen and harris formula is used on it, or it hasnt been done yet 

https://peerj.com/preprints/2327.pdf

Thank you for redirecting me to that part of the document. I need to read it again.

About the large specimen of S. populator, the problem is that Christiansen & Harris (2005) use formulas for long bones, not for skull. The only one that use skull size, specifically Condylobasal length, is Van Valkenburg (1990) and while the formula is interesting, it has the problem that she used litterature values to create it, not real weights, and also that the formula ignore the variations between species: For example if we use that formula to check the weight of lions and tigers, the tigers will be underestimated as the formula will assume that they have the same body proportions with lions, which is not correct (tigers had proportionally smaller heads in relation with the body than lions).

So, while this formula has been used with the biggest skulls available of Smilodon populator and Machairodus horribilis, we must use those values carefully, as we don't know the proportions of those species and certainly will have the same issue as with the tiger-lion heads example.

In other paper, Christiansen & Harris (2009) use an isometrical approach and use a database of known animals with they own real weight to get the body mass of Panthera atrox, but the problem here is that while we can use this approach with animals of similar body morphology, Smilodon do not have such a thing and if we use the Panthera morphology we can underestimate (or overestimate, honestly we don't know....) the body mass of Smilodon specimens.

Body mass is a tricky business, and hard to found a reliable conclution or approach.

oh ok thanks Reply