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Pleistocene Big Cats
Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
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Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
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 (08-16-2015, 11:26 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: So all Manchurian fossils should be pushed back prior to the Toba eruption, and all Manchurian subfossils should belong to the re-colonization era, right? I guess that is correct. I have one question, what is the necessary time for been a "subfossil"? I am curios with this definition.  (08-16-2015, 11:44 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(08-16-2015, 11:26 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: So all Manchurian fossils should be pushed back prior to the Toba eruption, and all Manchurian subfossils should belong to the re-colonization era, right? To my general knowledge, the most subfossils were dated after the Pleistocene era, since there isn't enough time for the organic matter to become fully fossilized. But there are also some exception, as some remains of the Pleistocene Cave lions and Cave Hyenas are also categorized as the subfossil, maybe it is the humidity that prevented the remains to become fully fossilized. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subfossil
In order for the Asian Cave lions to maintain the size of their European cousins, they must colonize the entire China, but they couldn't do it because most parts of China/Far East were already occupied by another dominant species of Panthera, the tiger.
The Cave lions were allowed to grow large in Europe because of the North Atlantic current that allowed the vegetation to grow in number to sustain those large herbivores which was their main prey base. When you pass the eastern side of the Ural, it suddenly becomes freezing cold because the mountain has blocked the warm wind from the Atlantic side. So entire Siberia that stretches from Ural to Beringia was freezing cold which is unable to sustain a large prey base, but except Manchuria which was influenced by the Pacific current and it was warmer than the rest of Siberia. So the Asian Cave lion could colonize the entire China via Manchuria as the doorstep, but their expansion had been stalled by the presence of the tiger species. 
There's a lot to read, I'll get to it. Nice discussion!
One thing looks certain, the Toba eruption likely caused the downsizing of many species, if not their extinction. I feel the larger tigers were probably wiped out due to the energy loss caused by the volcanic winter. The temperature drop killed off much vegetation as Guate stated, thus the smaller herbivores likely only survived as they could handle the lack of energy. The large tigers and lion(-like) cats(as in the supersize Ngandong form) probably died off as a result of the lack of prey biomass. Although, I still wonder what sealed the fate of some felines while others made it to today. The tiger and leopard's survival shows in the extreme adaptability of the subspecies. The lion, jaguar, and cheetah (which has faced a bottleneck) did well for themselves too. Was it just the genetic inability to adapt that caused the extinction of the cave lion and Machairodonts? Not even the smaller ones survived. Still being relative of today's cats, one would expect them to have similar adaptability. It's a perplexing event in Earth's history.
Guate, check some place where the Panthera atrox remain was found.
I guess 10000 years is enough of time to turn the remain into the fossil if the condition is dry enough, but if the Pleistocene remains were stuck in some wet/muddy place, then I guess these remains would also stay as the subfossil even it is old enough to become a fossil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB8Vadg0TlU (08-16-2015, 12:03 PM)tigerluver Wrote: There's a lot to read, I'll get to it. Nice discussion! Yep, that triggers my curiosity as well. Some Cave lion populations were definitely no bigger than the modern big cats, but still wonder they couldn't manage to adapt like their modern cousins.
Regarding P. spelaea (not P. fossilis) size, the NW Germany specimens look quite large. The 475 mm skull of Ural is huge as well, though I'm not aware of any exceptional long bones from the area. The British cave lions seems smaller, literally lion-sized. The far east Russian lions seem bigger than the British form, but smaller than the NW Germany and likely the Ural form. This may be why P. spelaea didn't get into the Americas after P. fossilis' colonization, they were smaller than those specimens, but still shared the same niche, so they were beat competitively.
For the same reason that they didn't colonize China was because the local native species like tiger had already seized the dominant position in the ecosystem.
Here goes for the Pleistocene North America, since the southern area was unaffected by the ice sheets, hence the lush vegetation was allowed to grow large number to sustain those mega herbivores. In order to maintain the large size, Panthera spelaea must seize the entire unfrozen area, but they also failed to achieve the objective because of the already dominant position of its Panthera (fossilis) atrox cousin. And I guess they might have encountered Panthera atrox in that narrow corridor on the western side, hence they probably got blocked by Panthera atrox.  *This image is copyright of its original author
These P. fossilis fragments look big. Compare them to the LAC2900-3 P. atrox mandible, which is 309.5 mm. The CBL of LAC2900-3 is 410 mm and GSL 458 mm.
 *This image is copyright of its original author
Also, are we sure that the Amur tiger's history in Manchuria was very recent?
Here is the big cat fossil discovered in Manchuria several years ago, and it should belong to the late Pleistocene era, but it looks more like an Amur tiger than anything else.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Mandibles A, C and D are massive! If the Panthera atrox mandible measure 309.5 mm, imagine how large are those other fossils?
The mandible C is Panthera leo or Panthera spelaea.
But by judging its location, I think it should be Panthera spelaea.
It is definetly Panthera spelaea or Panthera fossilis, depending of the time. The lion per se, which is Panthera leo, never existed in Russia or the north of Europe.
What do you think about the Amur-like fossil that being discovered in Manchuria?
Pretty good specimen, sadly that we don't have an estimated measurement or a ruler in the image for scale.
It will be interesting to know from which area it came, from the north or the south of Manchuria. Even then, that entire area was "tiger territory" even at 20,000 years ago, so it is definitely a tiger. |
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