|
Skulls, Skeletons, Canines & Claws
|
You could be absolutely right @peter.
The wild cats not only have more robust fangs, but also more refined looking ones with better proportion. The captive fangs on the other hand can be often more deformed and more disproportional. Here is an extremely rare South China tiger canine tooth from North China, and this fang could definitely be a wild specimen perhaps dated more than 100 years old. Just look how well it is preserved, it is only slightly worn down and extremely elegant looking in proportion.  *This image is copyright of its original author
Here is some deformed looking tiger canine teeth, presumably from the captivity.
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
@tigerluver
Can you imagine if we use the 50 mm canine alveoli based on this skull? I guess it would have broken the record as the broadest muzzle ever for the big cats.  *This image is copyright of its original author And this skull I am pretty sure it closely related to the modern Amur tigers, consider the convergent U shape of the muzzle, while the Cave lion's muzzle has the divergent U shape.  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (11-24-2016, 12:46 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: @tigerluver When I was in the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, I learned a lot from Dr. Doris Mörike. We sat in the same room and she quickly knew my routine. Every time a skull took more time than usual (not all skulls had labels), she came over for a chat. She told me about the effects of climate, disease and hunting, enabling me to quickly determine a skull without a label. When I was taking my time for a large leopard skull with no label attached to it, she was interested in what I had to say about it. The skull was larger, flatter and more robust than the others. The teeth also were much more robust. As it most probably wasn't a result of size only, I concluded it had to be a result of hunting large animals. As leopards living in open plains have to consider other predators, they often decide against hunting large animals. Forest leopards, however, have no competitors. This means they have the opportunity to hunt large animals. Some males develop into specialists. The result is a different animal with a different attitude. Hunting large animals often shows in the skull. Dr. Mörike agreed and added the shape and size of the choane says a lot as well. When it's large and deep, the owner of the skull needed a lot of oxygen. This is typical for animals living on plains. When it's smallish and shallow, on the other hand, the owner of the skull most probably made his home in a forest. The choane in the very large skull at the top of your post is relatively narrow and not deep, meaning the owner didn't need a lot of oxygen. This is typical for a forest cat, like a leopard or tiger. In many lion skulls, the choane is a bit larger and deeper. The skull of the tigress from northern China, with a greatest total length of 329,9 mm. and a rostrum width of 98 mm., is the largest I know of. In length and zygomatic width, it compares to the largest skulls of lionesses in northern and southern Africa, but in rostral width it's unsurpassed.
@peter
I am trying to estimate the rostrum width of that particular skull. And I also notice if we apply the largest Amur canine in existence to that skull, it would have produced a monstrous record for the rostrum width. This skull does look like a modern Amur skull on steroid. As you said before, the tigers in the past had been bulked up by mountain of available meat, and it also needs a larger and more robust skull to hunt down those large preys. Moreover, what is your opinion about the tiger-like Pleistocene lion? It got broad muzzle like the tiger, but its shape is like that of the lion.  *This image is copyright of its original author
robust leopard canines
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
African lion canine with weight
 *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
@tigerluver
Here is more variables to calculate the density of the jaguar canine. length: 86.23 mm width: 21.81 mm thickness: 16.06 mm weight: 29.7 grams  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
For that tooth, the density off all 3 measurements is 9.83e-4.
Using only the two measurements used in post #272 the density is 7.24e-4. Much more than the tiger and lion in that post.
So jaguar canines come out as proportionally the densest canine of all. Maybe that's why they are more prone for the skull biting against the preys.
BTW, what is your opinion about the canine alveoli in the post #324?
Amur tiger claw
 *This image is copyright of its original author
Sumatran tiger canine with weight
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
This isn't necessarily the claws or teeth of a bear, but this is a photograph I took of a black bear skull at the Shenandoah Museum on Sunday right before I traveled back to campus:
Looks to be a smaller black bear.
Although it is not intact, but I can see it belongs to an American Black bear, obviously different from an American Grizzly bear.
African lion
 *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
|
| Users browsing this thread: |
| 6 Guest(s) |