Oldest Big Cat Fossil Unearthed

[zooboy28]

Scientists have discovered a new big cat species that lived in Tibet 4.4 million years ago and was related to Snow Leopards.

Full story and photos here: World's oldest big cat fossil unearthed - science | Stuff.co.nz

Scientists have unearthed the oldest big cat fossil yet, suggesting the predator — similar to a snow leopard — evolved in Asia and spread out.

The nearly complete skull dug up in Tibet was estimated at 4.4 million years old — older than the big cat remains recovered from Tanzania dating to about 3.7 million years ago, the team reported.

While the new specimen is not a direct ancestor to big cats like tigers, lions, jaguars, it is closely related to the snow leopard, said study leader Jack Tseng of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

The find was detailed in Wednesday's Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences....

 

[TeaLovingDave]

The full description is now available - usually PRSB is pay-walled but until the 30th November the site is open to read. So I would suggest anyone interested in carnivoran taxonomy snap the paper up whilst they can!

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1774/20132686.full.pdf

Among the more notable points are that this species, Panthera blytheae, is the closest known kin of the snow leopard, Panthera uncia, and that the inclusion of this new taxon in the phylogenetic analysis of Panthera strengthens the case for P.uncia being deeply nested within the genus as the closest living relative of P.tigris

As such, the new taxon forms a monophyletic clade within Panthera alongside the snow leopard and tiger.

 

[jbnbsn99]

Looks like it pushes back the leo/pardus/onca split from tigris/unica. Almost to the point of warranting a separate genus (under Groves' definition of a genus being distinct since the Miocene-Pliocene boundary).

 

[TeaLovingDave]

As the type species of Panthera is the leopard, this would lead to the ironic situation that anyone wanting to keep the snow leopard as Uncia uncia would have to split the former genus and get used to calling the tiger Uncia tigris....