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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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 (11-10-2018, 10:51 PM)tigerluver Wrote:I remember a long arguments in some European forums about the real body mass of that P.t.soloensis with 480 mm femur. There was a table with weight assessment (I think from proffesional palaeontologists, not sure) of that specimen of 480 kg. But than many guys noticed how come a cat with so gracile bones could weight 480 kg, "that's a bullshit". Somehow in internet snicked that photo with the tampered femur, I have no idea who tampered and why - intentionally or non-intentionally. The weight of the soloensis was reassessed to 340-370 kg by some bloggers.(11-10-2018, 11:44 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(11-09-2018, 10:32 AM)tigerluver Wrote: On shoulder heights, I'd like to add some input based on actual bone data as most sources skip over that. Do not use weights as we can all see mass estimates are clearly unreliable and rather use long bone measurements for body size reconstruction. For the specimens we've recorded, all three giants likely reached around 130 cm. Nonetheless, based on probability it is quite likely there were a good amount of 140 cm P. fossilis we have not yet excavated. It was likely longer legged than modern cats (with distal limb elongation), meaning the largest of the bones are going to produce a very, very tall cat proportionately. One needs to understand that a 465 mm ulna and 192 mm MTIII are truly out of this world, no modern cat compares. Again weight and shoulder height are two different aspects. Now seeng the original photos of Koenigswald you posted it looks like the animal had more robust body building and maybe we have to return to idea of much higher body mass. @tigerluver as a professional paleontologist what is your assessment of the body mass of P.t.soloensis with 480 mm femur if we assume that it was only a tiger subspecie? Do you try to say that Panthera tigris soloensis was rival of Panthera fossilis in term of body mass?  (11-13-2018, 01:25 AM)Wolverine Wrote:(11-10-2018, 10:51 PM)tigerluver Wrote:I remember a long arguments in some European forums about the real body mass of that P.t.soloensis with 480 mm femur. There was a table with weight assessment (I think from proffesional palaeontologists, not sure) of that specimen of 480 kg. But than many guys noticed how come a cat with so gracile bones could weight 480 kg, "that's a bullshit". Somehow in internet snicked that photo with the tampered femur, I have no idea who tampered and why - intentionally or non-intentionally. The weight of the soloensis was reassessed to 340-370 kg by some bloggers.(11-10-2018, 11:44 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(11-09-2018, 10:32 AM)tigerluver Wrote: On shoulder heights, I'd like to add some input based on actual bone data as most sources skip over that. Do not use weights as we can all see mass estimates are clearly unreliable and rather use long bone measurements for body size reconstruction. For the specimens we've recorded, all three giants likely reached around 130 cm. Nonetheless, based on probability it is quite likely there were a good amount of 140 cm P. fossilis we have not yet excavated. It was likely longer legged than modern cats (with distal limb elongation), meaning the largest of the bones are going to produce a very, very tall cat proportionately. One needs to understand that a 465 mm ulna and 192 mm MTIII are truly out of this world, no modern cat compares. Again weight and shoulder height are two different aspects. IMO, Panthera tigris soloensis was reminiscent like Panthera fossilis which was a mixture of robusticity and cursoriality. It was a tall and strong feline, but compared to its cousins from China, it seems to have developed a more elongated skull and thinner canine teeth. I think for now @tigerluver does have reached the same consensus with my assumption. It was probable that a taller/larger feline could also proportionally develop longer skull correlated to its femur length. This means that the Panthera tigris soloensis with a 480 mm femur could have a 1:1 skull as well.
@tigerluver
I just manage to find the pics. The "omega" shape muzzle is a quite unique trait for tiger, especially for Amur tiger.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (11-13-2018, 01:25 AM)Wolverine Wrote: I remember a long arguments in some European forums about the real body mass of that P.t.soloensis with 480 mm femur. There was a table with weight assessment (I think from proffesional palaeontologists, not sure) of that specimen of 480 kg. But than many guys noticed how come a cat with so gracile bones could weight 480 kg, "that's a bullshit". Somehow in internet snicked that photo with the tampered femur, I have no idea who tampered and why - intentionally or non-intentionally. The weight of the soloensis was reassessed to 340-370 kg by some bloggers.Actually, there is a loooooooooon story regarding all those images and post in the web, and I am proudly part of it. All started by 2008-2009 when some posters showed images of an study of Dr Hertler and Dr Volmer about some tigers from the Sunda islands that apparently weighed 470-480 kg. It was very interesting and it was labeled as the Trinil tiger. At that moment nothing was known about these prehistoric tigers, no fossils, no documents, just the tables in the two papers from the mentioned scientists from 2005 (thesis) and 2008 (document), so I began an investigation about those fossils and based in the documents of Dr Hooijer (1947 and 1953), Dr Brongersman (1935) and Dr Groves (1992) I created a brand new topic in AVA and rediscovered what is now known as the Ngandong tiger Panthera tigris soloensis. Here is the first and original topic that I created in 2011: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/animalsv...rkwv_u0h8k After the end of the AVA forum, another forum from @Kingtheropod saved many information and I continued with the investigation, check it: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/animalba...n-t21.html In those two topics, from diferent forums, it started a huge wave of information regarding Pleistocene tigers and one poster finally presented information (not images) from the book of Dr Koenigswald, G. H. R. Von, 1933. Beitrag zur Kenntnis der fossilen Wirbeltiere Javas. Wet. Meded. Dienst Mijnb. Ned. Ind., no. 23, 184 pp., 28 pis. Before that information, I only theorized that based in the skull of c.380 mm and the humerus of 381 mm, the Ngandong tiger was very large, just like modern Bengal and Amur tigers and I discovered that the weights of 470-480 kg were derived from a "femur" using the Anyonge (1993) formulas which produce gross exagerations. However, after the presentation of the measurements of the femur discovered by Dr Koenigswald, all the participants in my post found that we were dealing with something very big, surelly the biggest tiger ever. After that we started with our first weight estimations and at the end I calculated a weight between 143-368 kg (from seven specimens) using the isometric equation and the methods of Christiansen & Harris (2009) and Sorkin (2008), which is basically the same, but Sorkin used the largest measurements available from particular specimens to extrapolate the size/weight and Christiansen and Harris used especific specimens (tigers, lions and jaguars) to estimate the weight using the same isometric formula. At the end, I published this image with the final results of my calculations and in fact, the Ngandong tiger was the largest tiger ever:  *This image is copyright of its original author Trought all that time, @GrizzlyClaws also found very large dentitions and a huge skull from a Pleistocene tiger from China, which apparently belonged to the crono-species of tiger known as Panthera tigris acutidens, however the published bones shows an animal no larger than the modern tiger, but more stockier. The dentition presented by Colbert & Hooijer (1953) suggested specimens larger than modern Amur and Bengal tigers, but using the formulas of Legendre & Roth (1988) and extrapolating other bone measurements I created this image:  *This image is copyright of its original author Obviously after all that, @GrizzlyClaws finally found in a Chinese forum the first pictures of the fossils of the Ngandong tiger from the book of Dr Koenigswald, but were very distorted, check it:  *This image is copyright of its original author So despite my best efforts, I was unable to reconstruct the true form of the femur. Some Russian posters even try to show that the femur was only 408 mm and that the information in the original book was incorrect, but with time I showed that it was false. At the end @tigerluver found the original book and published the first correct images of the large bones of the Ngandong tiger, and corroborated with I showed since my first post in AVA: all the fossils from the Pleistocene tigers show specimens of the same size of the modern Amur and Bengal tigers, some of them much smaller, but the Ngandong tiger femur of 480 mm and the large dentitions from China showed specimens much larger than that. Sadly the great tiger skull found by @GrizzlyClaws is in a private collection so probably we will never know its true size. So that is the history of the re-discovery of the Ngandong tiger. The fossils and measurements, the weights that I calculated and the pictures from @GrizzlyClaws. Now @tigerluver took care of the investigation and I ended my part about the Ngandong tiger for the moment. So, stay tuned for more information. Now, lets return to the Cave "lions" again. 
(11-18-2018, 01:22 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(11-13-2018, 01:25 AM)Wolverine Wrote: I remember a long arguments in some European forums about the real body mass of that P.t.soloensis with 480 mm femur. There was a table with weight assessment (I think from proffesional palaeontologists, not sure) of that specimen of 480 kg. But than many guys noticed how come a cat with so gracile bones could weight 480 kg, "that's a bullshit". Somehow in internet snicked that photo with the tampered femur, I have no idea who tampered and why - intentionally or non-intentionally. The weight of the soloensis was reassessed to 340-370 kg by some bloggers.Actually, there is a loooooooooon story regarding all those images and post in the web, and I am proudly part of it. Interesting. I think tigerluver discovered an international "conspiracy" with the tampered femur. This conspiracy of course has never affected professional paleontological curcles, but did affect some wildlife forums. I remember that in some Eastern Eoropean forums were circulating 2 completely diferent widths of that 480 mm femur and the most bloggers trusted more to the digits from the tampered image than the digits from an early scientific publications. Even some Russian bloggers started to use nasty and not polite words for the paleontologists who calculated the body mass of P.t.soloensis on 480 kg. Its understandable because majority of people trust more to images than to digits. Nobody could imagine that the femur from the image is tampered. 
@GuateGojira , @GrizzlyClaws , @Wolverine , I've moved the tiger related posts here to keep the cave lion thread on topic.
@Wolverine , I apologize for the delay in my response, it's coming soon. (11-13-2018, 01:25 AM)Wolverine Wrote:(11-10-2018, 10:51 PM)tigerluver Wrote:I remember a long arguments in some European forums about the real body mass of that P.t.soloensis with 480 mm femur. There was a table with weight assessment (I think from proffesional palaeontologists, not sure) of that specimen of 480 kg. But than many guys noticed how come a cat with so gracile bones could weight 480 kg, "that's a bullshit". Somehow in internet snicked that photo with the tampered femur, I have no idea who tampered and why - intentionally or non-intentionally. The weight of the soloensis was reassessed to 340-370 kg by some bloggers.(11-10-2018, 11:44 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(11-09-2018, 10:32 AM)tigerluver Wrote: On shoulder heights, I'd like to add some input based on actual bone data as most sources skip over that. Do not use weights as we can all see mass estimates are clearly unreliable and rather use long bone measurements for body size reconstruction. For the specimens we've recorded, all three giants likely reached around 130 cm. Nonetheless, based on probability it is quite likely there were a good amount of 140 cm P. fossilis we have not yet excavated. It was likely longer legged than modern cats (with distal limb elongation), meaning the largest of the bones are going to produce a very, very tall cat proportionately. One needs to understand that a 465 mm ulna and 192 mm MTIII are truly out of this world, no modern cat compares. Again weight and shoulder height are two different aspects. So the controversy behind the femur is based on the fact that the proximal (94 mm as published by vK) and distal measurements (88 mm as published by vK) seem small for the length of the bone. Early in memory, this was used as an opportunity to edit vK's table and convert the 480 mm length into 408 mm. This was quickly exposed and fortunately corrected. The tampered images seem to have been done so to force the photograph of the femur to match the proximal and distal widths to what was in the vK's table. I investigated vK's works and the photograph to learn vK's style of measurements. vK unfortunately never detailed his methods, however he did often refer to some measurements as diameters and others as (greatest) breadths. This is likely reason to believe he defined breadth and diameter somewhat differently. I came to the conclusion that vK did not measure true greatest width in the "Felis paleojavanica" bones, but rather diameters. A diameter is of course defined by the distance from point A to point B in a straight line. Now we need to remember that vK is a legendary paleontologist who focused on hominins. For my next point, here is the human femur:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Note that in the human femur, the epicondyles are wider than the condyles and generally distal diameters and breadths are taken near the adductor tubercle to produce the greatest width of the epiphysis. This usually works well for cats too and vK likely measured in this fashion. However, the Ngandong femur does not follow this convention.  *This image is copyright of its original author Note how in Smilodon (and most cats, including extant tigers), the epicondylar area (the top of the distal femur) is clearly broader than the condylar area (the lower part of the distal femur). Conversely, the epicondylar area of the Ngandong femur is much thinner than the condylar area. Now take a look at the scale overlayed in the above image. If you measure from about the adductor tubercle in a straight line to the lateral side, you get the reported distal diameter of 88 mm. However, this is not the femur's true greatest distal width. Similary, vK's proximal diameter is likely not the greatest diameter. For one, the photo shows one possible way he took it. Moreover, the sagittal diameter reported by vk of 59 mm makes a 94 mm greatest width of the proximal epiphysis impossible. I cannot say whether the sagittal diameter of the proximal was taken from the femoral head or somewhere else, but what I can say is that is extremely thick. Take a look at this chart from Merriam and Stock (1935):  *This image is copyright of its original author Note the anteroposterior (AP) diameter of the femoral head. The largest diameter is 54.3 mm. Generally, the sagittal/AP diameter of the femoral head is often the thickest point of the proximal femur. So lets assume vK's measurement is from the femoral head as well. At 59 mm, the proximal femur is quite a bit more robust than even the largest P. atrox. Therefore, this points strongly against the Ngandong femur being lanky. Here's another measurement for evidence. vK reported the width of the intercondylar fossa to be 23 mm on the inferior aspect of the distal femur. In a 225 kg tiger, the same measurement is around 17 mm. That's a massive 35% difference. The Ngandong femur was exceptionally robust distally. On mass, we'll use isometry again. Via just the femur length, we have (assuming a 405 mm femur is from a 220 kg tiger): Ngandong femur mass = (480 mm/405 mm)^3 * 220 = 366 kg Now if we use the intercondylar fossa diameter we have (assuming a 17 mm intercondylar fossa is form a 220 kg tiger): Ngandong femur mass = (23 mm/17 mm)^3 * 220 = 545 kg Thus, the mass based on the bone length is likely an underestimate and the mass based on the intercondylar fossa width is an overestimate. For the purposes of giving a number in this post, we can average the two values together for a mass of 456 kg. It is my opinion that the Ngandong tiger at least matched the mass of P. fossilis and the 480 mm femur specimen may have very well outweighed P. fossilis slightly if it had extant tiger proportions. While up until now the Ngandong femur has been considered to be the largest tiger we have found, it's very likely moving to second place. The Padang mandible we have talked about is building up to monstrous proportions but specifics will be given at a later date. @GrizzlyClaws made a good comparison with the mandible of the 458 mm P. atrox specimen in this post. To end, here is a comparison of the Ngandong femur with an extant tiger femur:  *This image is copyright of its original author
I speculate that the Pleistocene tiger might also have a 1:1 skull/femur ratio.
Otherwise, the femur of the Padang specimen would simply become an outrageous outlier which looks very unlikely. Maybe the Ngandong specimen also possesses a 470-480 mm skull like the Padang specimen, since the body proportion of the tiger might also vary over time. (11-18-2018, 05:57 AM)Wolverine Wrote: Interesting. I think tigerluver discovered an international "conspiracy" with the tampered femur. This conspiracy of course has never affected professional paleontological curcles, but did affect some wildlife forums. I remember that in some Eastern Eoropean forums were circulating 2 completely diferent widths of that 480 mm femur and the most bloggers trusted more to the digits from the tampered image than the digits from an early scientific publications. Even some Russian bloggers started to use nasty and not polite words for the paleontologists who calculated the body mass of P.t.soloensis on 480 kg. Its understandable because majority of people trust more to images than to digits. Nobody could imagine that the femur from the image is tampered. The important thing is that the professional circles used the publised measurements of Dr Koenigswald, here is the picture of the measurements from his book:  *This image is copyright of its original author At the begining, Koenigswald labeled the femur as "Felis palaeojavainica", just like the large skull, but latter it was corrected to Panthera tigris. So, as long as this are used, there is no doubt about the size of the femur. (11-18-2018, 09:53 AM)tigerluver Wrote: Thus, the mass based on the bone length is likely an underestimate and the mass based on the intercondylar fossa width is an overestimate. For the purposes of giving a number in this post, we can average the two values together for a mass of 456 kg. That is correct, the length of the femur in the study of Christiansen & Harris (2005), regarding the weight of the Smilodon, do produced lower figures compared with other bones. Also, using only the width of the bones will produce big figures that at the end are just overestimations. Personally I estimated that a weight of up to 400 kg is plausible, but @tigerluver is the true expert on this issues. 
New tiger fossils from Sangiran:
Some months ago someone put a picture of a new tiger fossils, a bone from a limb that was broken, but no more information was provided. Today I was navigating the internet when I found this article: https://kebudayaan.kemdikbud.go.id/bpsmp...-sangiran/ Is about a new tiger fossil with several bones in situ, and includes a part of a skull and a femur! Check the image from the article:  *This image is copyright of its original author A picture of the partial skull was published in AVA years ago, here it is (in the left side):  *This image is copyright of its original author This is in the Sangiran Museum. By the way, this is not the museum where the tiger skull found by Dr Koenigswald is housed. I used Google translator and the fossil was found in 2011 and apparently there are more on the way. Now, check also this article: https://www.trussty.com/2014/04/giant-ti...giran.html It seems that the bones has not been published (and I afraid, they never be). So its measurements are still unknown. The article also quote a document in Indonesian language but the pdf says nothing important, check the image of that document:  *This image is copyright of its original author So there are new tiger fossils in Java from the Pleistocene, but we still need to wait for its publication. 
 (11-18-2018, 10:27 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: I speculate that the Pleistocene tiger might also have a 1:1 skull/femur ratio. Can I see the photo of that Padang specimen skull around 470-480 mm? Is it a specimen of Panthera tigris soloensis? (11-18-2018, 07:58 PM)johnny rex Wrote:(11-18-2018, 10:27 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: I speculate that the Pleistocene tiger might also have a 1:1 skull/femur ratio. There is only a fragmented mandible available, and the skull estimation was based on that lower jaw. (11-18-2018, 07:58 PM)johnny rex Wrote:(11-18-2018, 10:27 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: I speculate that the Pleistocene tiger might also have a 1:1 skull/femur ratio. As @GrizzlyClaws stated, it is a fragmented piece. It is younger than the Ngandong tiger by a few hundred thousand years.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author At the estimated base of the enamel (estimated due to the mandible being missing around most of the canine), the lower canine crown height (CH) is 67 mm. Christiansen (2008) posted the average measurements of condylobasal length and lower canine crown height that give us one possible estimate of the condylobasal length (CBL) of the mandible.  *This image is copyright of its original author If we use all tigers, the mandible's CBL would be estimated as: CBL fossil = CH fossil/CH extant CBL extant = 67 mm/43.59 mm * 276.9 mm = 426 mm Greatest skull length (GSL) is generally 1.11x CBL at minimum, for a GSL of ~472 mm. Now if we only use male tigers (which have shorter canines for their skulls) we get: CBL fossil = CH fossil/CH extant CBL extant = 67 mm/44.50 mm * 291.9 mm = 440 mm Greatest skull length (GSL) is generally 1.11x CBL at minimum, for a GSL of ~488 mm. It is beyond question that the mandible is from a male, so perhaps the male to male comparison is of more use.
In that chart, the skull length is about 1.5 times longer than the lower jaw length.
Is this a little bit too long for the CBL? Did P. Christiansen (2008) really state this is the CBL, not GSL? |
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