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Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws
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African Lions claws
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Giant anteater claws
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Kodiak Brown Bear skull
It measures 47,5 cm long, wide 31 cm, length of upper fangs 54,8 mm and 55,7 mm, length of lower fangs 43,8 mm and 46,5 mm  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Pleistocene tiger or Cave lion???
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Great find @GrizzlyClaws! The preservation looks a bit like the Siberian P. spelaea I have seen which could make me lean that way. Although, the tooth looks a bit odd/unique as it seems thin and long, which sometimes can be a tiger trait. Do you think this is an upper or lower canine?
(07-21-2021, 06:17 AM)tigerluver Wrote: Great find @GrizzlyClaws! The preservation looks a bit like the Siberian P. spelaea I have seen which could make me lean that way. Although, the tooth looks a bit odd/unique as it seems thin and long, which sometimes can be a tiger trait. Do you think this is an upper or lower canine? A 16 cm one is indeed a upper canine, and it is also an upper ceiling for the Cave lion. It kinda looks like a tiger-ish upper canine tooth from an extremely large old male Cave lion. Some Cave lions can produce the atypical tiger-ish canine teeth, while many others just look no different from the typical lion canine teeth.
Here is a canine tooth from a large Panthera spelaea specimen from the Western Europe.
You can see it is shorter but proportionally more robust. It got thinning root just like the typical lion canine teeth, thus not well proportioned like those tiger-ish canine teeth.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author It is possible that the Siberian Cave lions used to produce more tiger-ish canine teeth than their European cousins? Because of the geographical proximity with the tigers, hence the Siberian Cave lions also shared more convergent morphology with the tigers?
The cave lion did get the wider skulls so there is some convergence there. My issue with the canine is that in literature, the eastern Late Pleistocene cave lion is small by cave lion standards. This paper covered a good selection of specimens and this paper covered the larger skulls which still don't exceed 360 mm. Of course, the canine could be from a different time period.
If we look at this figure from Christiansen (2007) (PM for the paper) we do the tiger has longer, thinner canines:  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (07-21-2021, 08:05 AM)tigerluver Wrote: The cave lion did get the wider skulls so there is some convergence there. My issue with the canine is that in literature, the eastern Late Pleistocene cave lion is small by cave lion standards. This paper covered a good selection of specimens and this paper covered the larger skulls which still don't exceed 360 mm. Of course, the canine could be from a different time period. Sumatran Tiger, generally a Tigers canine will be longer and wider from similarly sized cats, especially at the root. The canine in question looks like a mix between both Lions/Tigers although I lean more towards a lions shape. (07-21-2021, 08:15 AM)Pckts Wrote:(07-21-2021, 08:05 AM)tigerluver Wrote: The cave lion did get the wider skulls so there is some convergence there. My issue with the canine is that in literature, the eastern Late Pleistocene cave lion is small by cave lion standards. This paper covered a good selection of specimens and this paper covered the larger skulls which still don't exceed 360 mm. Of course, the canine could be from a different time period. I agree, looking at the table in the paper the average tiger canine is a bit thicker per unit length than the average lion canine.
Some Eastern Cave lions were absolutely huge, and maybe they were smaller on average than the Western Cave lions, but those top notch specimens were just as large as the largest Western Cave lions.
And they did have proportionally longer/thinner canine teeth.  *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
(07-21-2021, 08:48 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Some Eastern Cave lions were absolutely huge, and maybe they were smaller on average than the Western Cave lions, but those top notch specimens were just as large as the largest Western Cave lions. Monstrous specimens! Do you know the alleged localities? What would you say the length measurements of the specimens are? The giant jaw looks Romanian in both size and preservation. The skull has other peculiarities. I have never seen a truly complete carnivore skull from Eurasia on the fossil market, they are all restored or composite to increase the price. Maybe it's just the specimen, but the skull shows some oddities like a very short muzzle (could be camera angle), the posterior edge of the occiput goes very far past the condyles, the posterior arch is very narrow, there is plastering on the anterior end of the left hemimandible, the mandible is glossy and uniform in color while the skull is dull in color, and parts of the skull (like the occiput and area anterior to it) are different colors (which gives some concern for restoration work).
Jaguar skull collected in 1950 in Estado Cojedes in Venezuelan Llanos. It measures 27 cm long and 19 cm wide, upper fangs measure 5 cm long. It is in Museo de Historia Natural La Salle in Caracas Venezuela
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(07-21-2021, 07:39 PM)tigerluver Wrote:(07-21-2021, 08:48 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Some Eastern Cave lions were absolutely huge, and maybe they were smaller on average than the Western Cave lions, but those top notch specimens were just as large as the largest Western Cave lions. These Cave lion fossils were labelled as the Beringian subspecies from the eastern Siberia. These guys seem to be about in the same league with the giant Kahayan tiger, and they can be told apart from the European Cave lions with their relatively long canine teeth. |
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