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Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws

Germany OnionPrime Offline
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(04-11-2024, 05:30 AM)OnionPrime Wrote: 7.4 cm African Lion Claw (Body Mass: 173 kg)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Lion..._365156728
Rotating the picture, the maximum length of this claw is probably around 7.5 cm according to my calculation. The claw is around 880 pixels at maximum and the line 330 pixels.

Leaving us with (880/330) × 2.8046 cm = 7.48 cm maximum Length.

@GrizzlyClaws Are there larger ones than this lion claw? I went through some old posts from you and the longest you measured was apparently 6.9 cm. This is indeed quite an interesting topic! While this is pretty much on par with the bengal tiger, I noticed the maximum for the Amur Tiger was 8.5 cm! 

Was this Amur Tiger an extreme outlier or were there multiple ones that exceeded 7.5 cm and reaching 8 cm? Otherwise I wouldn't have thought that Amurs have noticeably larger claws than Begal Tigers (max: apparently 7.6 cm according to your old post). And that Bengal Tigers was exceptional in Size too!
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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The lion claw from #2181 got an identical size of the largest lion claw that I've seen before.

The 7.4 cm one was slightly stretched, and its real length should be less 7 cm, and not as robust as the 7 cm lion claw.
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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( This post was last modified: 04-13-2024, 07:46 AM by GrizzlyClaws )

Some claws got its hook being slightly pulled out from its knuckle bone.

This lion claw is a legit 7 cm claw in straight line (best representative of measurement) or 10.8 cm around the curve. It must belong to an alpha territorial male.



*This image is copyright of its original author
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Germany OnionPrime Offline
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6.1 cm Lion Claw 

*This image is copyright of its original author


*This image is copyright of its original author

https://www.catawiki.com/en/l/82704885-a...n-the-eu-1
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Germany OnionPrime Offline
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(04-13-2024, 07:44 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Some claws got its hook being slightly pulled out from its knuckle bone.

This lion claw is a legit 7 cm claw in straight line (best representative of measurement) or 10.8 cm around the curve. It must belong to an alpha territorial male.



*This image is copyright of its original author

Will try to ask the vets if they stretched the claw or not (maybe the bone is missing at some part as well)
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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I haven't seen many claws in a weighing scale, but a lot of canine teeth being measured & weighed.

There are a good number of references in this thread.
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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Generally speaking, the most distinct feature for lion canine is the banana-like shape; being tapering from the root part.

And you can see this feature is present in both prehistoric/modern lions.



*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author
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Spalea Offline
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@GrizzlyClaws:

About#2185:

141,20g. ! The weight of a prehistoric lion's fang, it makes me dreaming... I confess having not taken care very much of the prehistoric felids.
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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( This post was last modified: 04-17-2024, 04:20 AM by GrizzlyClaws )

(04-16-2024, 03:30 PM)Spalea Wrote: @GrizzlyClaws:

About#2185:

141,20g. ! The weight of a prehistoric lion's fang, it makes me dreaming... I confess having not taken care very much of the prehistoric felids.

The second pic is a four set canines of an adult male African lion, albeit a large male.

And its weight formula for each individual canine should be 0.3 + 0.3 + 0.2 + 0.2.

So the upper canine of a large male modern lion should weigh about 80g, a little more than half of a large male cave lion.
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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(04-16-2024, 04:56 PM)OnionPrime Wrote:
(04-16-2024, 07:35 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: Generally speaking, the most distinct feature for lion canine is the banana-like shape; being tapering from the root part.

And you can see this feature is present in both prehistoric/modern lions.



*This image is copyright of its original author



*This image is copyright of its original author

Why is that the case tho? Any evolutionary reason for that?

An evolutionary trait among different species.

Most land carnivores seem to have tapering root like lion, only tiger & jaguar got broad/flat root.

Maybe the solitary predators rely more on single bite via ambush.
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Spalea Offline
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@GrizzlyClaws 

You told: " The second pic is a four set canines of an adult male African lion, albeit a large male. And its weight formula for each individual canine should be 0.3 + 0.3 + 0.2 + 0.2. So the upper canine of a large male modern lion should weigh about 80g, a little more than half of a large male cave lion. "

Yes, I have retained the extant felids' fangs weights, but I would have never expected that the difference between an actual lion and an extinct one was so great... I would have imagined that the difference would have been proportionnal with the body weight, thus that the fang weight would have been 25% greater (100-110 grams), but 140 grams...

Perhaps this big difference is a consequence of a harder life, the predation would be harder during the Pleistocene era than in the extant day. Perhaps too, the cave lion was used to hunting some more powerful preys, more able to fight and resist. Hence the necessity to have some noticeably heavier fangs.

Do the claws follow the same tendancy ?
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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( This post was last modified: 04-17-2024, 06:17 AM by GrizzlyClaws )

(04-17-2024, 05:22 AM)Spalea Wrote: @GrizzlyClaws 

You told: " The second pic is a four set canines of an adult male African lion, albeit a large male. And its weight formula for each individual canine should be 0.3 + 0.3 + 0.2 + 0.2. So the upper canine of a large male modern lion should weigh about 80g, a little more than half of a large male cave lion. "

Yes, I have retained the extant felids' fangs weights, but I would have never expected that the difference between an actual lion and an extinct one was so great... I would have imagined that the difference would have been proportionnal with the body weight, thus that the fang weight would have been 25% greater (100-110 grams), but 140 grams...

Perhaps this big difference is a consequence of a harder life, the predation would be harder during the Pleistocene era than in the extant day. Perhaps too, the cave lion was used to hunting some more powerful preys, more able to fight and resist. Hence the necessity to have some noticeably heavier fangs.

Do the claws follow the same tendancy ?


Those 15 cm upper fangs were most likely belonged to those alpha territorial overlords.

You can also see a lot of beta male cave lions with 11-12 cm upper fangs.



*This image is copyright of its original author



For the modern lion, a supersized overlord should have 13 cm upper fangs that weigh 100-110g each.
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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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Sumatran tiger



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Canada GrizzlyClaws Offline
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Indochinese tiger



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Spalea Offline
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@GrizzlyClaws :

About #2191: you told " For the modern lion, a supersized overlord should have 13 cm upper fangs that weigh 100-110g each. "

OK, that puts into perspective the difference between alpha male cave lion and alpha male extant lion. I didn't know that modern lion's upper fang could reach and even exceed 100 grams. With the 110 grams weight, we recognize the "traditionnal" 25% difference we are agreeing between extant and cave lions.

So in your four fangs set of 266 grams (see #2185) with the 3 - 2 - 2 - 3 formula, we deduce the upper fangs weigh 80 grams and the lower fangs 63 grams.

As concerns the cave male lion's upper fangs of 140 grams, we deduce the lower fangs weighing around 93 grams each, thus the four fangs set would be approximately 466-468 grams.

And as concerns the extant super male alpha lion with the upper fang weighing 100-110 grams, the four fangs set would reach 332-368 grams.

Very interesting. An alpha male extant lion is an apex predator, no contest. But what about an alpha male cave lion sharing its environment with large pride of grey wolves and hyenas, cave bears (and perhaps tigers too) ? Perhaps not the only one apex predator. Thus a harder life to suffer...

I will look at among your posts some other fangs and claws of extinct lions (cave and atrox). Just to notice the extreme weights. Same things as concerns extinct and extant tigers.
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