Mammoths, Pharoahs and 3000BC - any ideas Shark?

[MythandLore]

Is the Liger the 50/50 merge of the tiger and lion? Or is this a further hybrid of the Tigon?

A liger is the offspring of a lion and a tigress. Ligers are the biggest type of big cat.
The offspring of a male tiger and a lioness is a tigon (alternative names are tion, tigron or tiglon). Tigons are rarer than ligers, because male tigers find the courtship behaviour of a lioness too subtle and may miss behavioural cues that signal her willingness to mate (even though the lionesses actively solicit mating) and becuase tigon's are much smaller then ligers which makes them less desirable to breed.
A tigon is often smaller than both lions and tigers and may be less robust than either parent. However, some have attained the size of the smaller parent.

 

[Tonguez]

After Man

Great read this and a TV documentary was even based on it.
In fact my personal version of the Destrachan is based on the evolved Predatory Land-Bat featured in this book.

btw Ligers

As to the Liger situation it is often cited by Creation Scientist as proof that evolution is crock. Tigers and Lions are a single species with regional variations not seperate evolutions from a single 'parent'. Creation Scientist also posit that God created 4 types of cats - TheLarge Cats (Lions/Tigers etc), Domestic types, Small wild cats (Lynx, Ocelot) and Sabre tooths...

PS the beast in the pic - is it live or stuffed?

 

[MythandLore]

As to the Liger situation it is often cited by Creation Scientist as proof that evolution is crock. Tigers and Lions are a single species with regional variations not seperate evolutions from a single 'parent'. Creation Scientist also posit that God created 4 types of cats - TheLarge Cats (Lions/Tigers etc), Domestic types, Small wild cats (Lynx, Ocelot) and Sabre tooths...

PS the beast in the pic - is it live or stuffed?

I'm not sure what your trying to say about Creation Scientists (as to what part is a crock? - evolution?)
Tigers an lions are pretty diffrent enuff that most (male) ligers are infertile (the low level of testosterone could be the reason why they are relitively gentle when compared to other big cats) just like most mules are.
You might also like to know it seems like alot of other cats "can" be hybrid, the combinations are pretty endless.
Not to mention the awesome looking "mutation" cats like white/black tigers, and lions.
A science "advances" and more and people want to "play god" I bet you'll see some really over the top stuff pop up someday.

PS - I think It was live on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last year.
I think he was a rescue, I don't remeber what zoo he's at now though.
They tend to be bred for the illegal pet trade or to be hunted, but I did hear earlier this year some zoo (I can't remeber if it was in europe or asia) was trying to bred ligers on purpose, I don't know why, my only guess would be as some kind of attraction for people to see.
They really do dwarf other cats though, even the biggest tigers.
But someday there could be a extra large tiger or lion that pops up, you never know, but with there shrinking gene pools it's unlikey, it's weird to think there is less 'genetically' in common between a tiger an a lion then there is between (both are modern horses) a horse that was 19 inches tall and 30 pounds at the withers and a horse that was almost 7 feet to the withers and 3940Lbs (which is really damn big when you think about how someone like Shaq is about as tall as that horse's shoulder).

 

[Desdichado]

Oh, mmadsen, that article you found was absolutely horrible! Barely a factual crumb in the entire thing. There is no such thing as a Smilodon californicus the famous smilodon from La Brea is Smilodon fatalis. And what's that about smilodons being nimravids? That's absolutely untrue.

In fact, smilodons seem to have replaced the last vestiges of nimravidae, a large carnivore named Dinofelis. Smilodon itself was a true cat of the macheirodont branch.

And the idea of sber-tooths "stabbing" their victims is ridiculous. although prevalent amongst folks who don't know any better. The canines are actually fairly thin and gracile. A cat who tried to stab it's prey would likely have broken them the first time he tried to do so.

Again, I can only refer you to Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives. Talks about all fossil cats, including (a little bit) the nimravids since they were remarkable parallels to true cats, and also goes into some detail about what the hunting/killing methods of the macheirodont cats probably was. But it certainly wasn't stabbing...

 

[Desdichado]

*BUMP*

No more replies on prehistoric gaming? I'm actually getting more and more excited the more I think about this setting (I've been tossing it around for months, but haven't really solidified anything yet...)

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Have you seen Walking with Prehistoric Beasts? The movie has a section on the sabertoothed cats. It was explained that they were used after the prey was pinned to the ground. Then the sabers were used to bite into the neck for a quick kill.

Oh, mmadsen, that article you found was absolutely horrible! Barely a factual crumb in the entire thing. There is no such thing as a Smilodon californicus the famous smilodon from La Brea is Smilodon fatalis. And what's that about smilodons being nimravids? That's absolutely untrue.

In fact, smilodons seem to have replaced the last vestiges of nimravidae, a large carnivore named Dinofelis. Smilodon itself was a true cat of the macheirodont branch.

And the idea of sber-tooths "stabbing" their victims is ridiculous. although prevalent amongst folks who don't know any better. The canines are actually fairly thin and gracile. A cat who tried to stab it's prey would likely have broken them the first time he tried to do so.

Again, I can only refer you to Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives. Talks about all fossil cats, including (a little bit) the nimravids since they were remarkable parallels to true cats, and also goes into some detail about what the hunting/killing methods of the macheirodont cats probably was. But it certainly wasn't stabbing...

 

[Sodalis]

the walking with series has a lot of factual material in it, but it also embelishes a lot.
Also- it said that it would pin the animal and then use the teeth to rip a hole in the neck and kill the prey- being careful not to use it while the animal is still struggling.

Plus, if you look, one of their characters (cause they tried ot make it a documentary type show- pretending the cat actually lives today) is "half-tooth"- meaning that he broke his tooth during combat for some reason.

but if you look at hunting carnivores, their teeth grow at a tremendous rate. Sharks, lions, Trex- all have constantly growing teeth- that replaces the old on within weeks.

So if the smilidon broke his tooth- it would have grown back in roughly a year or so...

 

[Desdichado]

That's not true, Sodalis. Lion's (or any mammal's with the exception of rodent's and lagomorph's incisors) were not constantly growing.

And despite what Walking with Prehistoric Beasts shows, most specialists believe that a saber-tooth with a broken tooth -- especially one on it's own like that, would probably starve.

But the method used in that show seems to be the preferred explanation, given that we can't ever know for sure how the teeth were used.

BTW, are saber-tooth stats given anywhere? Or other non-dinosaurian prehistoric beasts of any kind?

 

[MythandLore]

I've never heard of a lion growing back it's teeth...

Anyway...
Here is the La Brea Tar Pits website.
http://www.tarpits.org/
In the FAQ:
What are the most commonly found animal remains?
Dire wolves are the most common large mammals from Rancho La Brea, with several thousand individuals represented in the Page museum collections. The remains of over 2,000 individuals of saber-toothed cat rank second.

Here is some info they have on the "Sabertooth Tiger"
http://www.tarpits.org/exhibits/fossils/16-cat.html

This is a web site that sells replicas - it has some sabertooth cat stuff.
http://www.evolutionnyc.com/IBS/SimpleCat/Shelf/ASP/Hierarchy/0309.html

This is a nice site on skulls - if you hit the refresh button it will show diffrent random skulls as well
http://www.calacademy.org/exhibits/skulls/
From the site on Sbaer tooths:
Q: Why did saber tooth cats develop such long canines?
CT: These teeth were specialized for stabbing and slicing ­ they allowed saber tooth cats to penetrate the thick skins of even large prey and reach their vital organs. Smilodon, a cat that lived over 25 million years later than Hoplophoneus, developed even longer canines.
Dr. Carol Tang
Senior Science Educator and Research Associate
Department of invertebrate Zoology & Geology

Here is the site to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum - It has a part on the cat exibit they had (it's traveling so it's not there now) and it has parts talking about diffrent ancient cats.
http://www.nhm.org/index.html
http://www.lam.mus.ca.us/cats/home.html
On the Smilodon fatalis Saber-toothed Cat:
http://www.lam.mus.ca.us/cats/encyclo/smilodon/index.htm
On the Panthera atrox American Lion: (Which was larger then modern lions)
http://www.lam.mus.ca.us/cats/encyclo/atrox/index.htm
And on the Dinictis False Sabertooth:
http://www.lam.mus.ca.us/cats/encyclo/dinictis/index.htm

 

[Desdichado]

*Bump*

Any prehistoric animals/beasts statted up anywhere?