ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - A - THE TIGER (Panthera tigris)

[Betty]

Siberian tiger skull

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[tigerluver]

The following is a callback from post #206 by @peter. My question is regarding this Japanese mandible:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I have not seen such a piece mentioned in any 21st century paper yet and it seems to be important. Would anyone happen to know the source of the photograph of the mandible? Reply

[peter]

(07-03-2018, 09:55 PM)tigerluver Wrote: The following is a callback from post #206 by @peter. My question is regarding this Japanese mandible:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I have not seen such a piece mentioned in any 21st century paper yet and it seems to be important. Would anyone happen to know the source of the photograph of the mandible?

When searching the internet, I found these photographs. There was no additional information, but the photographs suggests the excavation was a long time ago. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(07-04-2018, 09:42 AM)peter Wrote:

(07-03-2018, 09:55 PM)tigerluver Wrote: The following is a callback from post #206 by @peter. My question is regarding this Japanese mandible:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I have not seen such a piece mentioned in any 21st century paper yet and it seems to be important. Would anyone happen to know the source of the photograph of the mandible?

When searching the internet, I found these photographs. There was no additional information, but the photographs suggests the exacavation happened a long time ago. A zoologist or biologist must have written an article at some time. 

If I would be interested in details, I would read a number of articles about tiger evolution. I remember a recent Chinese article. In the references, I found a bit more about Japan tigers. Unfortunately, I lost the notes I made when the house was renovated.

I remember two things. One was they disappeared before the Toba eruption. Two was they were smaller than their neighbours in mainland Asia.

Is possible that they were the Amur tigers who suffered the insular dwarfism like the modern Sunda tigers? Reply

[Smilodon-Rex]

(07-04-2018, 12:14 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-04-2018, 09:42 AM)peter Wrote:

(07-03-2018, 09:55 PM)tigerluver Wrote: The following is a callback from post #206 by @peter. My question is regarding this Japanese mandible:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I have not seen such a piece mentioned in any 21st century paper yet and it seems to be important. Would anyone happen to know the source of the photograph of the mandible?

When searching the internet, I found these photographs. There was no additional information, but the photographs suggests the exacavation happened a long time ago. A zoologist or biologist must have written an article at some time. 

If I would be interested in details, I would read a number of articles about tiger evolution. I remember a recent Chinese article. In the references, I found a bit more about Japan tigers. Unfortunately, I lost the notes I made when the house was renovated.

I remember two things. One was they disappeared before the Toba eruption. Two was they were smaller than their neighbours in mainland Asia.

Is possible that they were the Amur tigers who suffered the insular dwarfism like the modern Sunda tigers?

Captive Amur tigers usually have big inner gap in bodysize, the most possible reason is because of the unstable ecosystem of North-East Asia that damaged the Amur tigers diversity in their lineages over the past history. Fortunately, some excellent lineages can be reserved by captivity, which can be growing larger than other. We cannot sure how huge the Amur tigers in prehistoric period, but we can image that some of them have  huge sizes  are closely related to their lineages. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(07-04-2018, 10:06 PM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote:

(07-04-2018, 12:14 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-04-2018, 09:42 AM)peter Wrote:

(07-03-2018, 09:55 PM)tigerluver Wrote: The following is a callback from post #206 by @peter. My question is regarding this Japanese mandible:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I have not seen such a piece mentioned in any 21st century paper yet and it seems to be important. Would anyone happen to know the source of the photograph of the mandible?

When searching the internet, I found these photographs. There was no additional information, but the photographs suggests the exacavation happened a long time ago. A zoologist or biologist must have written an article at some time. 

If I would be interested in details, I would read a number of articles about tiger evolution. I remember a recent Chinese article. In the references, I found a bit more about Japan tigers. Unfortunately, I lost the notes I made when the house was renovated.

I remember two things. One was they disappeared before the Toba eruption. Two was they were smaller than their neighbours in mainland Asia.

Is possible that they were the Amur tigers who suffered the insular dwarfism like the modern Sunda tigers?

Captive Amur tigers usually have big inner gap in bodysize, the most possible reason is because of the unstable ecosystem of North-East Asia that damaged the Amur tigers diversity in their lineages over the past history. Fortunately, some excellent lineages can be reserved by captivity, which can be growing larger than other. We cannot sure how huge the Amur tigers in prehistoric period, but we can image that some of them have  huge sizes  are closely related to their lineages.

I do believe that the Japanese tigers were derived as an offshoot of the Amur tiger lineage, albeit exposed to the insular dwarfism since the islandization of Japan.

The same instance happened to the Sumatran tigers, they used to be huge when the Sunda Shelf was connected to the Mainland Asia, but they became what they are now after the insular dwarfism. Reply

[peter]

(06-30-2018, 04:40 PM)Betty Wrote: Siberian tiger skull

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
There's something wrong with the maxillary bone, the rostrum and the teeth. Anything known about this skull Betty? Reply

[peter]

BIG CATS IN JAPAN

After responding (see post 1,669) to the question of Tigerluver (see post 1,668), I reread the first pages of this thread. Posts 06 - 16 - 17 - 58 - 65 - 66 - 68 have information about big cats in Japan. I also reread an article about the distribution of tigers in the Pleistocene and Holocene.

The points that stuck are briefly discussed in this post.

a - Japan most probably had tigers about 20 000 years ago

In 2016, 'Predicted Pleistocene-Holocene Range Shifts of the Tiger (Panthera tigris)' was published in 'Diversity and Distribution'. This article (Cooper DM - Dugmore AJ - Gittings BM - Sharf AK - Wilting A - Kitchener AC) is of interest regarding Japan.

Here's the link to the (full) article (recommended): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ddi.12484

In the article, 3 distribution models were discussed. In all of them, the presence of tigers in Japan is predicted:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

b - The skull excavated in Japan, most probably, didn't belong to Panthera tigris, but to Panthera palaeosinensis

After Zdansky's publication on Panthera palaeosinensis (1924), this Early Pleistocene jaguar-sized big cat was seen as the initial model of Panthera tigris for quite a long time:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Later, this conclusion was revised. Panthera palaeosinensis now is regarded as an early representative of the genus Panthera:

https://prehistoric-fauna.com/Panthera-palaeosinensis

I don't know if the skull excavated in Japan a century ago (referring to the photograph in post 1,668) belongs to P. palaeosinensis or P. tigris, but the photograph suggests the last.


c - If the previous points both are correct, Japan could have had two species of big cats

It is not known when Panthera palaeosinensis became extinct in Japan. Based on what I read, it's likely this cat disappeared between 100 000 - 80 000 years ago.

I'm not sure if the Toba eruption (about 75 000 years ago) had a direct effect on big cats in northeastern Asia (tigers survived in southeastern China), but it's likely that the animals they hunted were affected (referring to the effect of climate change on vegetation).

After the population had recovered, tigers recolonized most of northeastern and western Asia. The article discussed above says Japan was included.  

During the Holocene, when the sea level rose, Japan, like Indonesia, was isolated from mainland Asia. It's likely that Panthera tigris (japonensis), as Grizzly suggested, had to adapt to new conditions. Losing size can help, but a big cat surviving on smallish mammals will struggle with an energy deficit in the long run, especially in severe winters. If we add human pressure, chances are they didn't survive more than a few thousand years.       

Indonesia had no winter. It did have a lot of forest and many medium-sized and (Sumatra) largish prey animals. Human pressure was low for a very long time. This is why tigers were able to adapt and hold on in Sumatra, Java and Bali. In Palawan and Borneo, they did not. I'm not sure about Palawan, but Borneo has no large mammals to hunt. 

When the human population exploded in Indonesia, the countdown for tigers started. Bali tigers were the first to go. Java tigers most probably perished a few decades later. Sumatra still has pristine forests and 300-900 tigers, but the natural world is rapidly disappearing and conservation has no priority. Reply

[Smilodon-Rex]

(07-04-2018, 11:02 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-04-2018, 10:06 PM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote:

(07-04-2018, 12:14 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-04-2018, 09:42 AM)peter Wrote:

(07-03-2018, 09:55 PM)tigerluver Wrote: The following is a callback from post #206 by @peter. My question is regarding this Japanese mandible:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I have not seen such a piece mentioned in any 21st century paper yet and it seems to be important. Would anyone happen to know the source of the photograph of the mandible?

When searching the internet, I found these photographs. There was no additional information, but the photographs suggests the exacavation happened a long time ago. A zoologist or biologist must have written an article at some time. 

If I would be interested in details, I would read a number of articles about tiger evolution. I remember a recent Chinese article. In the references, I found a bit more about Japan tigers. Unfortunately, I lost the notes I made when the house was renovated.

I remember two things. One was they disappeared before the Toba eruption. Two was they were smaller than their neighbours in mainland Asia.

Is possible that they were the Amur tigers who suffered the insular dwarfism like the modern Sunda tigers?

Captive Amur tigers usually have big inner gap in bodysize, the most possible reason is because of the unstable ecosystem of North-East Asia that damaged the Amur tigers diversity in their lineages over the past history. Fortunately, some excellent lineages can be reserved by captivity, which can be growing larger than other. We cannot sure how huge the Amur tigers in prehistoric period, but we can image that some of them have  huge sizes  are closely related to their lineages.

I do believe that the Japanese tigers were derived as an offshoot of the Amur tiger lineage, albeit exposed to the insular dwarfism since the islandization of Japan.

The same instance happened to the Sumatran tigers, they used to be huge when the Sunda Shelf was connected to the Mainland Asia, but they became what they are now after the insular dwarfism.

During the pleistocene, Japan and Indonesia are connected with Mainland Asia, which could  let tigers expanded  to these territory. At that period, Indonesia was a peninsula not a islands, where the ecosystem could be more likely as modern India，tropical jungle and savanna mixed together(It looks like a landscape of the jungle book the film). 
Ngandong Tigers were living in that environment, their average sizes just equivalent to big populations of modern Bengal Tigers, however, some of the individuals were very huge, even could be grown to over 350kg closed to prehistoric Lions(although it wasn't huge as them）.
Meanwhile, tigers in Japan were couldn't grown bigger even smaller, compared with their mainland close relatives. In my opinion, food chain was one of the key reasons, Ngandong Tigers territory had continued lots of large-scale herbivores while the Japanese Tigers not. In pleistocene, most of the herds of herbivores in North-East Asia were gathered at mainland not a peninsula, while in South-East Asia, the stable and predominant ecosystem attracted more herds of herbivores came in，peninsula could also provided better conditions for large-scale beasts. Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(07-05-2018, 07:27 AM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote: During the pleistocene, Japan and Indonesia are connected with Mainland Asia, which could  let tigers expanded  to these territory. At that period, Indonesia was a peninsula not a islands, where the ecosystem could be more likely as modern India，tropical jungle and savanna mixed together(It looks like a landscape of the jungle book the film). 
Ngandong Tigers were living in that environment, their average sizes just equivalent to big populations of modern Bengal Tigers, however, some of the individuals were very huge, even could be grown to over 350kg closed to prehistoric Lions(although it wasn't huge as them）.
Meanwhile, tigers in Japan were couldn't grown bigger even smaller, compared with their mainland close relatives. In my opinion, food chain was one of the key reasons, Ngandong Tigers territory had continued lots of large-scale herbivores while the Japanese Tigers not. In pleistocene, most of the herds of herbivores in North-East Asia were gathered at mainland not a peninsula, while in South-East Asia, the stable and predominant ecosystem attracted more herds of herbivores came in，peninsula could also provided better conditions for large-scale beasts.

@tigerluver has a large Pleistocene tiger mandible under his collection. The location of the specimen was actually from the Padang highlands of Sumatra, and the fossil level belonged to the late Pleistocene which was supposed to be less than 100 KYA.

The overall mandible is estimated to be in between 310-330 mm which provides us a rendition of an approximate 480 mm skull.

This specimen was morphologically and chronologically closer to the modern tigers, and also being larger than the Ngandong tiger specimens that we recognized previously.

There could have many larger unknown specimens among the Pleistocene big cats, and we might not know how many exactly. Reply

[Smilodon-Rex]

(07-05-2018, 12:07 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-05-2018, 07:27 AM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote: During the pleistocene, Japan and Indonesia are connected with Mainland Asia, which could  let tigers expanded  to these territory. At that period, Indonesia was a peninsula not a islands, where the ecosystem could be more likely as modern India，tropical jungle and savanna mixed together(It looks like a landscape of the jungle book the film). 
Ngandong Tigers were living in that environment, their average sizes just equivalent to big populations of modern Bengal Tigers, however, some of the individuals were very huge, even could be grown to over 350kg closed to prehistoric Lions(although it wasn't huge as them）.
Meanwhile, tigers in Japan were couldn't grown bigger even smaller, compared with their mainland close relatives. In my opinion, food chain was one of the key reasons, Ngandong Tigers territory had continued lots of large-scale herbivores while the Japanese Tigers not. In pleistocene, most of the herds of herbivores in North-East Asia were gathered at mainland not a peninsula, while in South-East Asia, the stable and predominant ecosystem attracted more herds of herbivores came in，peninsula could also provided better conditions for large-scale beasts.

@tigerluver has a large Pleistocene tiger mandible under his collection. The location of the specimen was actually from the Padang highlands of Sumatra, and the fossil level belonged to the late Pleistocene which was supposed to be less than 100 KYA.

The overall mandible is estimated to be in between 310-330 mm which provides us a rendition of an approximate 480 mm skull.

This specimen was morphologically and chronologically closer to the modern tigers, and also being larger than the Ngandong tiger specimens that we recognized previously.

There could have many larger unknown specimens among the Pleistocene big cats, and we might not know how many exactly.

According to the estimates, 480 mm skull's Ngandong tiger may just weighted over 350 kg, although it couldn't huge as prehistoric lions, it still have competence to hunt Stegodon in territory. 

*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

Reply

[GrizzlyClaws]

(07-06-2018, 06:47 AM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote:

(07-05-2018, 12:07 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-05-2018, 07:27 AM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote: During the pleistocene, Japan and Indonesia are connected with Mainland Asia, which could  let tigers expanded  to these territory. At that period, Indonesia was a peninsula not a islands, where the ecosystem could be more likely as modern India，tropical jungle and savanna mixed together(It looks like a landscape of the jungle book the film). 
Ngandong Tigers were living in that environment, their average sizes just equivalent to big populations of modern Bengal Tigers, however, some of the individuals were very huge, even could be grown to over 350kg closed to prehistoric Lions(although it wasn't huge as them）.
Meanwhile, tigers in Japan were couldn't grown bigger even smaller, compared with their mainland close relatives. In my opinion, food chain was one of the key reasons, Ngandong Tigers territory had continued lots of large-scale herbivores while the Japanese Tigers not. In pleistocene, most of the herds of herbivores in North-East Asia were gathered at mainland not a peninsula, while in South-East Asia, the stable and predominant ecosystem attracted more herds of herbivores came in，peninsula could also provided better conditions for large-scale beasts.

@tigerluver has a large Pleistocene tiger mandible under his collection. The location of the specimen was actually from the Padang highlands of Sumatra, and the fossil level belonged to the late Pleistocene which was supposed to be less than 100 KYA.

The overall mandible is estimated to be in between 310-330 mm which provides us a rendition of an approximate 480 mm skull.

This specimen was morphologically and chronologically closer to the modern tigers, and also being larger than the Ngandong tiger specimens that we recognized previously.

There could have many larger unknown specimens among the Pleistocene big cats, and we might not know how many exactly.

According to the estimates, 480 mm skull's Ngandong tiger may just weighted over 350 kg, although it couldn't huge as prehistoric lions, it still have competence to hunt Stegodon in territory. 

*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

The mandible didn't belong to the Ngandong tiger, but to a much more recent specimen from the late Pleistocene, and it was morphologically closer to the modern tigers.

It is also proportionally more robust built, and we shall request @tigerluver to us a favor by scaling the body mass of this specimen. Reply

[Betty]

(07-05-2018, 04:24 AM)peter Wrote:

(06-30-2018, 04:40 PM)Betty Wrote: Siberian tiger skull

*This image is copyright of its original author

 
There's something wrong with the maxillary bone, the rostrum and the teeth. Anything known about this skull Betty?

The merchant said that the skull length is 370mm. Reply

[Betty]

Siberian tigers and South China tigers.

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[Shir Babr]

(07-06-2018, 06:47 AM)Smilodon-Rex Wrote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

King Kong tiger? Reply