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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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The small teeth are a characteristic of the prehistoric Javan tigers.
I found the answer in Brongersma: "no. 1479. Right lower jaw, Trinil, XII. 1891 (Felis trinilensis). A nearly complete right lower jaw, only the processus coronoideus being broken and the condyle slightly damaged." This mandible is 195.2 mm, the full size would be some bigger. The right mandible has no length measurements, but that can be easily be measured from the book. Now the question that baffles me, why do some prehistoric Panthera have such long cornoid processes compared to modern species? 
As far I know the coronoid process allows area for the muscles that are used to bite. Maybe the old tiger form had larger bones for stronger bite but at the same time it had smaller teeth. In modern Javanese tigers they have large teeth but the sagital crest is greatly reduced.
it will be interesting to know the full skull for more details, but sadly it doesn't exist. Can you compare the mandible of this tiger with that of the Longdang "tiger" from China? This last one is still more primitive. 
How about morpholotically comparing with this one? Have we done that before?
 *This image is copyright of its original author
Yes, we have done that before and the result was that the mandible matched very well with the Javanese and Balinese tiger skulls, while those of the mainland tigers were longer in the symphysis and not so squared.
Here are the comparisons: http://animalbattle.yuku.com/reply/206/b...is-soloens
@tigerluver, here is more pics of the mandible.
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
A Cave lion hair sample found around the Malyi Anyui River (Kirillova et al. 2015):
 *This image is copyright of its original author When the followup study is published, I'll bring the info. Red hair is interesting. The fur is very well adapted for insulation, as would be expected. (06-07-2015, 09:34 AM)'tigerluver' Wrote: A Cave lion hair sample found around the Malyi Anyui River (Kirillova et al. 2015): This should belong to the Beringian Cave lion (Panthera spealea vereshchagini). BTW, i think the only two candidates for the large mandible found in Manchuria should be the Wanhsien tiger (Panthera tigris acutidens) and the Beringian Cave lion (Panthera spelaea vereshchagini) considered the geographic proximity. However, those large specimens of Panthera spelaea were mostly found in Europe and the Western Russia, while those from the Eastern Russia were barely larger than the modern Indian lions. As for the Wanhsien tiger, it was known to grow at least as large as the largest modern tigers. Also, the skull from the private collections in South China also showed to be a giant specimen. Also, Manchuria is mostly made by the Taiga forest, it could be very well still belong to the tiger domain. The tiger stopped expanding further north from Manchuria because the unfavorite natural habit such as the steppe plain, so same for the lion-like felines, they stopped expand further south in Manchuria as the steppe plain ended there.
Another candidate I've considered is P. youngi.
This was posted on the old discussion:  *This image is copyright of its original author Do you know what source this is from? The strong curvature of the symphisis is most similar. I compared the mandible to the Watoealang mandible and the fit was much better than modern tiger comparisons, so the two are likely further apart. I don't think its cave lion. Again, the symphisis curvature is sharp in this mandible, moreso than in the cave lion:  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author A note on the Wahnsien skull. I've come to the conclusion that it is more likely of a juvenile, explaining the dental proportions.
Interesting, the Panthera youngi also shows some strong affinity with the Ngandong tiger.
So does it mean that P.youngi is also a tiger or a tiger-like feline at least? BTW, if those recorded Wanhsien specimens were juvenile, then this tiger could be larger than we previously thought, right? For the Panthera youngi fossil, i think i've seen these sources somewhere in a Chinese paleontologist website, the fossil records were recorded in China by Pei, 1934, but somewhat translated into English.
Yes, if that's a juvenile skull as I suspect, then we could expect it to be bigger than previously thought. Applying modern tiger dentition ratios to the measurements show a tiger as large as the modern species.
Some comparisons of the mandbible: P.t. acutidens:  *This image is copyright of its original author P. youngi:  *This image is copyright of its original author
Well, that Wanhsien tiger skull looks pretty 'infantile' to me, so i also suspect it is a juvenile specimen.
The symphisis curvature of the mandile would be nearly 100% identical if that Wanhsien tiger skull is an adult specimen. The Panthera youngi looks very closely related to both Wanhsien tiger and the mandible, maybe it could be an offshoot of the tiger clade, like the descendant of an ancestral species of the tiger clade such as the Panthera zdanskyi.
Machairodus kabir
Peigne et al. (2005) is the source where the popular estimate for the largest M. kabir of 490 kg was published. This value was derived by relating the functional length to the greatest distal width (107 mm). The length estimate ranged from 380 mm-423 mm depending on the species used. Applying Anyonge's equation to these values resulted in a mass estimate of 350 kg-490 kg, depending on the length estimate used. In my opinion, only the length estimate derived from M. giganteus is valid for this extrapolation, at 417 mm. I also measured the width of the distal articular surface of the humerus:  *This image is copyright of its original author Using the length of 417 mm and DAW of 73 mm, the Christiansen and Harris (2005) formulae give an estimate of ((301 kg + 230 kg)/2) 266 kg. Keeping it to the largest of the great cats in his database, the estimate is ((304 kg + 237 kg)/2) 271 kg. Different from Panthera, the articular surface of the distal articulation is a ways smaller than the greatest width of the articulation. The Christiansen specimen are lighter than usual for bone dimensions based on my personal data and a few other papers, so this specimen could be closer to the 300 kg mark. With that, I still don't know where Anyonge pulled his database from, the estimates are just too different. |
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