There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
(09-08-2018, 11:38 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: They were initially giant-sized like their predecessors, but later decreased in size due many external factors like climate change and hum
So how big did the prehistoric Siberian, Bengal Tigers and other modern grew Grizz? did they grew just as big as the Nangond Tiger?? i assume not or else we would be talking about it. we have fossils of these past giant Siberian, Bengal Tigers? i assume i should ask for the African Lions as well.
(09-09-2018, 03:15 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: For example, the animals like gorilla and clouded leopard all have twin species, could this be the case for the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion?
The Mainland clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard had been diverged over 1.6 million years, yet both species are still considered as clouded leopard, and same case for the eastern gorilla and western gorilla.
That is a good point, but also remember that is all related with Taxonomy and the point of view of the researcher. Remember that Cracraft et al. (1998) and Mazák & Groves (2006) using molecular and morphological studies and following the rules of the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC), they clasified all the island tigers as a completelly diferent species (not subspecies) ot tigers. However the last meeting of the UICN/SSC Cats Specialist Group, the island tigers are just "subspecies". So it depends of the people and the evaluation of the information.
Other example is the polar bears, some studies separate it from the brown bears for millions of years while othere give a separation of less than 300,000 years! And we know how diferent are the polar from the brown bears.
So, with a diference of at least 1.5 millions years, the spelaea/atrox groups should be a diferent species from leo and that is the final conclusion in Barnett et al. (2016) and for the moment, I follow that conclusion, especially when we see that King & Wallace in the document "Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters" from 2014, still found tiger afinities in Panthera atrox, which suggest primitive characteristics that Panthera spelaea lost and that Panthera leo lacks completelly.
What were those tiger affinities Guate? I remember seeing pictures of Spelaea with tiger stripes and similar coats. Those pictures are still accurate? Right now searching for images of Spelaea I see dot patterns or no markings at all.
(09-08-2018, 11:38 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: They were initially giant-sized like their predecessors, but later decreased in size due many external factors like climate change and hum
So how big did the prehistoric Siberian, Bengal Tigers and other modern grew Grizz? did they grew just as big as the Nangond Tiger?? i assume not or else we would be talking about it. we have fossils of these past giant Siberian, Bengal Tigers? i assume i should ask for the African Lions as well.
It depends the prey density, assuming they had the similar prey density, then the size was also going to be similar.
09-10-2018, 10:07 AM( This post was last modified: 09-10-2018, 10:08 AM by GrizzlyClaws )
(09-10-2018, 09:16 AM)genao87 Wrote: sweet jesus, what bones/fossils do you have of our modern tigers growing so big back then? also any articles? would love to read them.
The huge mandible from Sumatra.
According to @tigerluver, it belonged to a modern tiger.
(09-09-2018, 03:15 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: For example, the animals like gorilla and clouded leopard all have twin species, could this be the case for the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion?
The Mainland clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard had been diverged over 1.6 million years, yet both species are still considered as clouded leopard, and same case for the eastern gorilla and western gorilla.
That is a good point, but also remember that is all related with Taxonomy and the point of view of the researcher. Remember that Cracraft et al. (1998) and Mazák & Groves (2006) using molecular and morphological studies and following the rules of the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC), they clasified all the island tigers as a completelly diferent species (not subspecies) ot tigers. However the last meeting of the UICN/SSC Cats Specialist Group, the island tigers are just "subspecies". So it depends of the people and the evaluation of the information.
Other example is the polar bears, some studies separate it from the brown bears for millions of years while othere give a separation of less than 300,000 years! And we know how diferent are the polar from the brown bears.
So, with a diference of at least 1.5 millions years, the spelaea/atrox groups should be a diferent species from leo and that is the final conclusion in Barnett et al. (2016) and for the moment, I follow that conclusion, especially when we see that King & Wallace in the document "Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters" from 2014, still found tiger afinities in Panthera atrox, which suggest primitive characteristics that Panthera spelaea lost and that Panthera leo lacks completelly.
What were those tiger affinities Guate? I remember seeing pictures of Spelaea with tiger stripes and similar coats. Those pictures are still accurate? Right now searching for images of Spelaea I see dot patterns or no markings at all.
The tiger affinities are only in the skull, remember that the fur pattern of the cave "lions" is unknown, and the little patches of skin known are not of the same color than modern lions.
Images from the internet are not reliable, there are only representations of the artists, based in "0" evidence. In fact, I remember a document that says that some cave paintings shows a stripe-type pattern in the back part of a cave "lion" picture, but that is just speculation.
Check the document "Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters", is available for free in Researchgate.com.
09-10-2018, 11:04 AM( This post was last modified: 09-10-2018, 11:06 AM by GuateGojira )
(09-10-2018, 06:00 AM)genao87 Wrote: So how big did the prehistoric Siberian, Bengal Tigers and other modern grew Grizz? did they grew just as big as the Nangond Tiger?? i assume not or else we would be talking about it. we have fossils of these past giant Siberian, Bengal Tigers? i assume i should ask for the African Lions as well.
I know that the question is not for me, but I love to answer size related questions.
The Holocene tiger fossils (12,000 years ago) published in litterature are no larger than the modern tigers populations recorded in scientific documents. The dentitions and fragments of mandibles found in the Russian Far East are of the same size than modern Amur tigers but those before that date (Late Pleistocene) are in fact larger in all dimentions, and we clasified them in the crono-subspecies of Panthera tigris acutidens.
The long bones of Pleistocene tigers in mainland publised and available in this moment, do not show any exceptional size, but at least the metapodials (the "hand" bones) are slightly longer but more robust than those of modern tigers of any subspecies. You will not found any Bengal tiger fossil older than 12,000 as the tiger invaded the Indian subcontinent after the last Ice Age. The record from a metapodial from a "tiger" from Sri Lanka is unreliable as the analysis is very poor, from my point of view. Holocene (or modern) Bengal and Amur tigers are of the same size, with skulls of c.380 mm in scientific records and c.406 mm in hunting records, maximum weights are about 250-260 kg for both populations.
For the moment, the largest fossils of any tiger, published at least, are those from the Ngandong tiger, with a huge femur of 480 mm in total length. There is now a new mandible of no less than c.300 mm! (not published, yet..) that apparently came from an Holocene tiger, but I will love more information about it, before to make any conclusion. If we use the available information in documents, no fossil, for any tiger population, is larger than those of the Pleistocene tigers from Java, but the large skull discovered and reported here by @GrizzlyClaws in China, plus the mandible that is studied by @tigerluver now, may challenge that idea (sadly the skull is not scientific hands).
(09-09-2018, 05:37 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: I agree. For the moment, I will play with the idea between a face off between Panthera spelaea from Alaska and a Panthera atrox from norther USA!
Panthera atrox range had been covering from USA-Canada border to Peru in South America, as a matter of fact,they may had wider range in Latino America，nice to meet you @GuateGojira
(09-09-2018, 03:15 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: For example, the animals like gorilla and clouded leopard all have twin species, could this be the case for the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion?
The Mainland clouded leopard and Sunda clouded leopard had been diverged over 1.6 million years, yet both species are still considered as clouded leopard, and same case for the eastern gorilla and western gorilla.
That is a good point, but also remember that is all related with Taxonomy and the point of view of the researcher. Remember that Cracraft et al. (1998) and Mazák & Groves (2006) using molecular and morphological studies and following the rules of the Phylogenetic Species Concept (PSC), they clasified all the island tigers as a completelly diferent species (not subspecies) ot tigers. However the last meeting of the UICN/SSC Cats Specialist Group, the island tigers are just "subspecies". So it depends of the people and the evaluation of the information.
Other example is the polar bears, some studies separate it from the brown bears for millions of years while othere give a separation of less than 300,000 years! And we know how diferent are the polar from the brown bears.
So, with a diference of at least 1.5 millions years, the spelaea/atrox groups should be a diferent species from leo and that is the final conclusion in Barnett et al. (2016) and for the moment, I follow that conclusion, especially when we see that King & Wallace in the document "Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters" from 2014, still found tiger afinities in Panthera atrox, which suggest primitive characteristics that Panthera spelaea lost and that Panthera leo lacks completelly.
The two separated species within a same genus should have enough genetic barrier that prevents them to produce the 100% healthy fertile offspring.
The Sunda tiger was a relatively distantly related subspecies from the Mainland tiger, since they had been genetically isolated from each other in the late Pleistocene. In comparison, the Mainland tigers had only been separated by the human intervention in the recent time, but genetically the Sunda tiger is not an outlier within the tiger genetic boundary.
Maybe the Pleistocene lion and Afro-Asiatic lion had already developed this unique strain of DNA that prevent them to produce the genetically flawless offspring, but still more viable than the cross hybrid like the liger.
Although the Panthera atrox's populations in Latino America were smaller than North America,their body size still equivalent of modern big-scale lions and tigers, they could grown into over 270kg
(09-10-2018, 12:10 PM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote: Panthera atrox range had been covering from USA-Canada border to Peru in South America, as a matter of fact,they may had wider range in Latino America，nice to meet you @GuateGojira
I had read that the limit of habitat of the "pure" Panthera atrox is up to Chiapas in the Mexico/Guatemala border. There is a new document that says that the large jaguars from Peru are in fact Panthera atrox, however Dr Ross Barnet strongly disagree and says that they already tested the large cats from Talara and the result is that those cats are just large jaguars. Other document of Dr Yamaguchi, about the mane development, accept that the great cats in Talara are also jaguars.
In think that, for the moment, we can safely say that Panthera atrox ranged from Canada-USA border until Chiapas in Mexico, but the cats in South America are probably giant jaguars. Sadly, for the moment, there are no large cat fossils from Guatemala to Colombia, which is very bad and there is a big gap IF we believe that the large cats of Peru are in fact P. atrox.
09-10-2018, 05:43 PM( This post was last modified: 09-10-2018, 05:45 PM by peter )
(09-10-2018, 11:04 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(09-10-2018, 06:00 AM)genao87 Wrote: So how big did the prehistoric Siberian, Bengal Tigers and other modern grew Grizz? did they grew just as big as the Nangond Tiger?? i assume not or else we would be talking about it. we have fossils of these past giant Siberian, Bengal Tigers? i assume i should ask for the African Lions as well.
I know that the question is not for me, but I love to answer size related questions.
The Holocene tiger fossils (12,000 years ago) published in litterature are no larger than the modern tigers populations recorded in scientific documents. The dentitions and fragments of mandibles found in the Russian Far East are of the same size than modern Amur tigers but those before that date (Late Pleistocene) are in fact larger in all dimentions, and we clasified them in the crono-subspecies of Panthera tigris acutidens.
The long bones of Pleistocene tigers in mainland publised and available in this moment, do not show any exceptional size, but at least the metapodials (the "hand" bones) are slightly longer but more robust than those of modern tigers of any subspecies. You will not found any Bengal tiger fossil older than 12,000 as the tiger invaded the Indian subcontinent after the last Ice Age. The record from a metapodial from a "tiger" from Sri Lanka is unreliable as the analysis is very poor, from my point of view. Holocene (or modern) Bengal and Amur tigers are of the same size, with skulls of c.380 mm in scientific records and c.406 mm in hunting records, maximum weights are about 250-260 kg for both populations.
For the moment, the largest fossils of any tiger, published at least, are those from the Ngandong tiger, with a huge femur of 480 mm in total length. There is now a new mandible of no less than c.300 mm! (not published, yet..) that apparently came from an Holocene tiger, but I will love more information about it, before to make any conclusion. If we use the available information in documents, no fossil, for any tiger population, is larger than those of the Pleistocene tigers from Java, but the large skull discovered and reported here by @GrizzlyClaws in China, plus the mandible that is studied by @tigerluver now, may challenge that idea (sadly the skull is not scientific hands).
This skull is from a 4-year old male Amur tiger. The tiger was shot by the director of the Koln zoo (Germany) after he had killed a keeper. The article was discussed in the tiger thread not so long ago. Watch the scale of 125 mm. just below the skull and tell me what you think:
(09-10-2018, 06:00 AM)genao87 Wrote: So how big did the prehistoric Siberian, Bengal Tigers and other modern grew Grizz? did they grew just as big as the Nangond Tiger?? i assume not or else we would be talking about it. we have fossils of these past giant Siberian, Bengal Tigers? i assume i should ask for the African Lions as well.
I know that the question is not for me, but I love to answer size related questions.
The Holocene tiger fossils (12,000 years ago) published in litterature are no larger than the modern tigers populations recorded in scientific documents. The dentitions and fragments of mandibles found in the Russian Far East are of the same size than modern Amur tigers but those before that date (Late Pleistocene) are in fact larger in all dimentions, and we clasified them in the crono-subspecies of Panthera tigris acutidens.
The long bones of Pleistocene tigers in mainland publised and available in this moment, do not show any exceptional size, but at least the metapodials (the "hand" bones) are slightly longer but more robust than those of modern tigers of any subspecies. You will not found any Bengal tiger fossil older than 12,000 as the tiger invaded the Indian subcontinent after the last Ice Age. The record from a metapodial from a "tiger" from Sri Lanka is unreliable as the analysis is very poor, from my point of view. Holocene (or modern) Bengal and Amur tigers are of the same size, with skulls of c.380 mm in scientific records and c.406 mm in hunting records, maximum weights are about 250-260 kg for both populations.
For the moment, the largest fossils of any tiger, published at least, are those from the Ngandong tiger, with a huge femur of 480 mm in total length. There is now a new mandible of no less than c.300 mm! (not published, yet..) that apparently came from an Holocene tiger, but I will love more information about it, before to make any conclusion. If we use the available information in documents, no fossil, for any tiger population, is larger than those of the Pleistocene tigers from Java, but the large skull discovered and reported here by @GrizzlyClaws in China, plus the mandible that is studied by @tigerluver now, may challenge that idea (sadly the skull is not scientific hands).
In fact, that giant mandible was dated around 50 kya, but it is closer to the modern tiger morphologically.
Since the formation of the modern tiger subspecies was occurred after the Toba eruption which was dated 75 kya.
I now start to believe that those antiquated tiger subspecies like Ngandong tiger and Wanhsien tiger were dated before the Toba eruption, while the modern tiger subspecies after.
(09-10-2018, 06:00 AM)genao87 Wrote: So how big did the prehistoric Siberian, Bengal Tigers and other modern grew Grizz? did they grew just as big as the Nangond Tiger?? i assume not or else we would be talking about it. we have fossils of these past giant Siberian, Bengal Tigers? i assume i should ask for the African Lions as well.
I know that the question is not for me, but I love to answer size related questions.
The Holocene tiger fossils (12,000 years ago) published in litterature are no larger than the modern tigers populations recorded in scientific documents. The dentitions and fragments of mandibles found in the Russian Far East are of the same size than modern Amur tigers but those before that date (Late Pleistocene) are in fact larger in all dimentions, and we clasified them in the crono-subspecies of Panthera tigris acutidens.
The long bones of Pleistocene tigers in mainland publised and available in this moment, do not show any exceptional size, but at least the metapodials (the "hand" bones) are slightly longer but more robust than those of modern tigers of any subspecies. You will not found any Bengal tiger fossil older than 12,000 as the tiger invaded the Indian subcontinent after the last Ice Age. The record from a metapodial from a "tiger" from Sri Lanka is unreliable as the analysis is very poor, from my point of view. Holocene (or modern) Bengal and Amur tigers are of the same size, with skulls of c.380 mm in scientific records and c.406 mm in hunting records, maximum weights are about 250-260 kg for both populations.
For the moment, the largest fossils of any tiger, published at least, are those from the Ngandong tiger, with a huge femur of 480 mm in total length. There is now a new mandible of no less than c.300 mm! (not published, yet..) that apparently came from an Holocene tiger, but I will love more information about it, before to make any conclusion. If we use the available information in documents, no fossil, for any tiger population, is larger than those of the Pleistocene tigers from Java, but the large skull discovered and reported here by @GrizzlyClaws in China, plus the mandible that is studied by @tigerluver now, may challenge that idea (sadly the skull is not scientific hands).
In fact, that giant mandible was dated around 50 kya, but it is closer to the modern tiger morphologically.
Since the formation of the modern tiger subspecies was occurred after the Toba eruption which was dated 75 kya.
I now start to believe that those antiquated tiger subspecies like Ngandong tiger and Wanhsien tiger were dated before the Toba eruption, while the modern tiger subspecies after.
To be honest, Ngandong tiger may not as huge as we image, the largest felines in history were prehistoric lions and giant machairodontinaes .
(09-10-2018, 12:10 PM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote: Panthera atrox range had been covering from USA-Canada border to Peru in South America, as a matter of fact,they may had wider range in Latino America，nice to meet you @GuateGojira
I had read that the limit of habitat of the "pure" Panthera atrox is up to Chiapas in the Mexico/Guatemala border. There is a new document that says that the large jaguars from Peru are in fact Panthera atrox, however Dr Ross Barnet strongly disagree and says that they already tested the large cats from Talara and the result is that those cats are just large jaguars. Other document of Dr Yamaguchi, about the mane development, accept that the great cats in Talara are also jaguars.
In think that, for the moment, we can safely say that Panthera atrox ranged from Canada-USA border until Chiapas in Mexico, but the cats in South America are probably giant jaguars. Sadly, for the moment, there are no large cat fossils from Guatemala to Colombia, which is very bad and there is a big gap IF we believe that the large cats of Peru are in fact P. atrox.
Panthera atrox in South America has left the fur record, and new studies showed that they may left the hunting record
Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
