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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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vK wrote 240 mm for the width. Though in his ratio calculations he had this exactly: 380 mm/240 mm = 1.52. Now a width of 240 mm does not produce that number. Though, a width of 250 mm, which I measured from my book, does exactly. A few years back I was kindly provided a whole bunch of measurements on Ngandong dentitions. From it, there were a few teeth of specimens similar to this size and another that was likely from a skull a bit larger than this one, around 390-400 mm.
I've read the Hooijer document but I don't see a mandible length of the skull. I used the upper p4 (33.3 mm) measurement published and the image is from Matthew and Granger (1923) to figure out the length. 
Thank you, so 250 mm is the correct zygomatic wide, now this size has more sense to me, for a skull of c.380-390 mm long.
On the mandible issue, check page 6 in Hooijer document, there is the column seven of table 3, there is the only complete mandible, I assumed this is the one from the skull (A.M.N.H. No. 18624) with c.215 mm in length. The upper Pm4 of 33.3 mm is also in table 2 of Hooijer paper of 1947.
Ah, I see it, thanks. I didn't think of that belonging to AMNH18624 as there's seems to be other fragmentary mandibles. Anyhow, I roughly measured the mandible proportion in the image and I got ~270 mm GSL using 215 cm, in line with the upper p4 measure essentially. I don't know why no author (three parties published on this one skull, Hooijer, Matthew and Granger, and Haltenorth) published data on this skull but never once gave a length measurement.
Nearly two centimeter of difference is not too much, maybe is the picture used. I used the one of Hooijer.
About the unpublished length, haaaaaaaaaaa those are the mysteries of life. Why they give tooth measurements and not the skull size? That is silly to me, there is no reason to obviate this measurement. I am still more interested in the specimen A.M.N.H.18678 and A.M.N.H.18680, arguably the largest specimens of the Wanhsien tiger and sightly larger than the largest Amur-Bengal tiger dentition recorded. Sadly, they only give the tooth size and nothing more. [img]images/smilies/dodgy.gif[/img]
Early 20th century measurement were odd to say the least. The only straightforward measurement methods I've encountered was Merriam and Stock, simply because they described everything thoroughly. von Koenigswald is a bit confusing at points, especially with the long bones, as he measured the Dawkins book illustration really oddly. For example, the book is 24 cm in length. Most of the other bones fit the scaling expectation. Two phalange that at ~70 mm in length in reality equate to over 100 mm by the wrong scaling on the page. He also gave measurements of different areas of the cheek but never bothered to give the individual dentitions measurements either. Often the scaling of pictures relative to the page is totally off in a lot of the old books too. I'm guessing that's more on the publisher. Hooijer skipping out on skull lengths is just as weird. I guess they were writing on so many fossils at once that things got messed up in the packaging. Add to that, I feel most paleontologist pioneers were more focused on hominids in the area, as many of these books/documents compare other species to human characteristics. At least they logged the material.
Also, here's the vK page showing his ratios of the Ngandong skull and the rest of the comparitive material:  *This image is copyright of its original author On the Ngandong fauna, it's interesting to note that this area was still very close to the coast at the Java. Java was at the edge of Sunda shelf, and many large species were supported at this geographic location. Another observation on the leopard of the Ngandong. They were likely larger than todays. Two specimens mentioned look to be around 100-120 kg, a bit bigger the size of the largest verified leopard I believe. They were also more robust. The Cervini of middle Pleistocene Java were not that large, Gruwier (2015) shows that at best, some were a bit bigger than the Sambar. This large leopard probably preyed on these. The other herbivores were elephant-like species and rhinos. These don't look to be African elephant size, but they were within the range of what you'd expect a 300 kg cat to prey upon alone. At this point, if posters would like info on specific cat species, please ask. I'm getting busy with specific specie work so I'll have to sometimes refrain from taking the initiative of bringing the description of another species. I've a lot of old record, a bunch digitalized as well if people would like to read those. I'll sign off with the Dawkins book, describing remains of the English European cave lion and other species such as the cave bear. England was glacially connected to the rest of Europe during the ice age, allowing simple terrestrial immigration and emigration of species. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=...pg=GBS.PP1
Just a note. The mandible of the skull on the left is not of the 380 mm long cranium of Ngandong. It is of another specimen found in Watoealang.
 *This image is copyright of its original author Its placed in the skull but it doesn't look to be a natural fit. The mandible is much too large. I will have to remeasure a few times, but what's apparent of the mandible looks to be 275 mm in length (like Hooijer, vK only gave dental measurements). How long do you think the complete mandible would be?  *This image is copyright of its original author
A mandible of that size (c.275 cm) would belong to a skull of no less than 400 cm. The huge skull from Manchuria (reported by Mazák) that measured 406 cm had a mandible of 276 cm. This can give us an idea of the size of that skull.
A tiger with a skull of 406 cm probably had a head-body length of c.220 cm in straight line, following the proportion of 5.4 that I established before.
These are two Trinil mandibles:
 *This image is copyright of its original author The coronoid processes are different in length between the two. The right mandible looks to be missing the angle and the condyloid process while the left a chunk of the bone leading to the coronoid proces. Would you agree? I think @peter would be helpful here as he is well versed with skulls. 
Those normal large specimens of the Ngandong tiger look similar sized to the Panthera speleae, maybe the freak specimens can produce the 17-18 inches skull?
This mandible may be of a very large specimen, but I need to figure out how far back the coronoid process was in P.t. soloensis. From the vK figure, it goes very far back in the Trinil specimen. The coronoid process also goes quite far back in P. atrox.
It may be a normal large specimen, but definitely not a freak specimen like the specimen with the 480mm femur.
A 16 inches skull should belong high end of the normal spectrum for the Pleistocene tigers. (05-30-2015, 11:46 AM)'tigerluver' Wrote: These are two Trinil mandibles: This mandible fossil looks very similar to the mandible from Manchuria, except the one from Manchuria is like 320+mm. The similarity between these two mandibles is comparable to that of the skulls between the Ngandong tiger and the Wanhsien tiger.  *This image is copyright of its original author
The Ngandong mandible looks even more similar in terms of curvature. It's a shame I can't use it as journals want collection IDs and numbers for any fossil material.
(05-31-2015, 07:50 AM)'tigerluver' Wrote: The Ngandong mandible looks even more similar in terms of curvature. It's a shame I can't use it as journals want collection IDs and numbers for any fossil material. Yeah, it is a shame that they have just missed to scientifically collect the giant specimens from the Wanhsien tiger. I can also imagine that a freak Ngandong tiger specimen to produce the similar sized mandible. (05-30-2015, 11:46 AM)'tigerluver' Wrote: These are two Trinil mandibles:I think that the right specimen is of a young animal as the mandible seems very short with smaller teeth (I am not talking about the scale, just about the overall image and perception of the bone), while the left specimen is a full grown animals with a large head (based in the length of the bone). That is my appreciation at simple sight. There are published measurements of these mandibles? I think they came from Dr Brongersman document. |
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