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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 Wanhsien-like specimens from the northern Manchuria, and the Amur-like specimens from the southern Manchuria.
Regarding specimen C, it's likely from the mid Pleistocene (http://www.geology.cz/sbornik/antropozoi...mals...pdf).
The source is in Russian, hard to find from US search engines with key words. It's most likely P. fossilis. LAC2900-3 has an exceptionally long coronoid process, so it's more likely that mandible is around the same size rather than significantly larger. Nevertheless, it's possible specimen C's coronoid process is jut as extended, there's plenty of intraspecific variation in cats. Sotnikova and Foronova's P. fossilis specimens are from eastern Siberia. Here's Reichanau's almost complete P. fossilis mandible:  *This image is copyright of its original author It's really similar to the 33 cm mandible GrizzlyClaws posted. That makes sense, as P. atrox is the daughter species of P. fossilis.
I also notice that both Panthera fossilis and Panthera atrox got longer and sharper canine teeth than Panthera spelaea.
It doesn't make sense for a such formidable predator as Panthera spelaea got proportionally the smaller canine teeth. Maybe they were only prone to hunt the reindeer?
Regarding Driscoll's estimate, take it with a grain of salt. Only one study has attempted molecular dating of the tiger genome.
Take mitochondrial Eve for example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve), one date range is 99-148 kya and the other 160 kya. Molecular DNA dating is not easy to pinpoint with great certainty. Confidence intervals don't necessarily prove the estimate either, as in the end, the confidence interval is still the product of the data. The Manchurian fossils have fallen through the cracks, thus hypotheses are the only publishable options of when tigers arrived there. Remember, "the hypothesis that tiger population structure reflects recent (less than 10,000 y ago), human-induced population fragmentation and random lineage loss from a single panmictic population is not supported by the strong geographical partitioning of the mitochondrial lineages or by differences in measures of nucleotide diversity within each subspecies"(Luo et al. 2004). Therefore, if tigers got to Manchuria earlier than 10 kya, it is probable they would have started evolving from the Wahsien form soon after, especially those populations away from the Wahnsien-Amur boundary.
Speaking about the mandible, you did mention that the Ngandong tiger has got long coronoid process, right?
Is this particular trait designed for increasing the bite strength?
P. spelaea was smaller, and if it coexisted to some extent with P. fossilis (which it likely did), they prey bases would be different due to niche competition, likely explaining the canine discrepancy. Although, comparing two of Marciszak et al. (2013) skulls, P. spelaea had thicker/wider canines. I've a bad feeling P. spelaea and P. tigris fossils are being confused with each other, the skull features are very similar regardless of the common belief that P. spelaea is a true lion. P. fossilis/atrox are much more lion-like.
Yep, Panthera spelaea got very thick robust canine teeth, while Panthera fossilis/Panthera atrox got sharper and longer canine teeth probably for tackling against the larger mega herbivores.
Some modern tigers' canine teeth are also very Panthera spelaea-like, very thick and robust, quite beastly looking. Panthera spelaea  *This image is copyright of its original author Panthera tigris  *This image is copyright of its original author
Their teeth are so robust, they truly are designed to take a lifetime of abuse.
Quite impressive
Imagine the force required to puncture the tough skin of a Gaur or something like that.
Incredible
The root of Panthera spelaea's canine tooth looks thinner, that still makes it more lion-like.
BTW, I think there are some degree of convergent evolution that existed between the Panthera spelaea and tiger, just like the leopard who is genetically more close related to the lion, but physically it resembles more to the jaguar. (08-19-2015, 12:41 AM)tigerluver Wrote: Regarding specimen C, it's likely from the mid Pleistocene (http://www.geology.cz/sbornik/antropozoi...mals...pdf). The 33 cm mandible is likely from the Southeast United States which also known as the black belt region. Here is the Panthera atrox fossil from the Northwest Florida which also belongs to the black belt region. http://www.arizonaskiesmeteorites.com/Fossils_For_Sale/American_Lion/ The dark color was likely caused by the minerals in the sediments of the dark soil.
More Panthera spelaea fossils from the Ural.
What really baffles me is that these new fossils look too tiger-like; the skull looks too vaulted for a lion-like cat, and the nasal bone is also tiger.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Can you distinguish it from the big Wanhsien skull in China?
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
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