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Comparison of Lower Carnassials of Cave Lion, Tiger, and Leopard Here is a comparison between the lower carnassials (m1) of the three Panthera species that I own. 1. Size: from smallest to largest: Leopard: 1.86 cm Tiger: 2.54 cm Cave Lion: 2.7 cm 2. Morphology: In image 1, the red circle indicates the metaconid and the green circle indicates the talonid. The cave lion m1's metaconid is very well-developed (it should be more developed than modern lions), while the talonid is almost nonexistent. The leopard m1 is noticeably much smaller, with a relatively pronounced but underdeveloped metaconid, and no talonid. The tiger has an even smaller metaconid than the leopard, but the talonid is very well-developed. So far, I have collected lower carnassials from three members of the Panthera genus, but I feel there may not be many more that can be purchased. My current aims are to acquire the lower carnassials of P. palaeosinensis/zdanskyi from the Equus fauna of Gansu, China, and a leopard m1 from the Stegodon - Ailuropoda fauna from southwestern China. One day, when I stop having to pay student loans being poor, I can look for the lower carnassials of jaguars and American lions; I don't have high hopes for other Panthera species. Panthera (leo) spelaea: Panthera tigris (probably amoyensis or acutidens):

I decided to separate the 2 finds here from my finds from Saturday. One is pretty enough to have its own thread.. This is a upper jaw section of Hemiauchenia macrocephala from the University of Florida Vertebrate Paleontology Database. M3, M2, M1 upper right maxilla Here is almost my best find Saturday... As I picked it out of the sieve, I knew it was an upper jaw camelid, most likely Hemiauchenia. I took it over to my kayak and snapped a couple of photos. I have been educated , mostly by Harry in other threads to recognize 100 % enamel teeth (no dentine or cementum) and what that means... In this case, an young adult camel has a barely erupted tooth, still in the process of growing roots, when it was likely killed by a predator a couple of million years ago. (I like to imagine stories). Look at the 2nd last tooth ... all enamel, a bare hint of root... Initially I thought this might be the M2, but looking at this last photo, comparing to the UF 271830 jaw, I switched to the M3.. Can you see why? I sent it to Richard Hulbert last night asking insight on the filigree pattern. I said "almost" above... There is a broken fragment of a tooth that I almost tossed (NEVER toss anything you do not recognize as a rock). Serrations on a 50 mm fragment !!!! That gets my imagination going. While Megs are all over Florida, there has never been a fragment found at this location.. It is not impossible that a Meg might have wandered in to an unlikely location.. Another possibility is Great White.. We have found some small GWs, but none over 2 inches.. This would be from a max sized GW... So , shark experts could tell me what they know about serrations from larger sharks. these look uniform . exact same size... and if someone does not recognize this as Meg or GW there is yet another possibility of large teeth with serrations...

I was asked if I would create a post to detail how I arrived at an ID for the Calcaneum I recently posted for consideration as fossil of the month (Feb, 2023). To start, immediately below are some photos of the Calcaneum in question. It's from the Beaumont Formation of Fort Bend County, TX, so it's likely Pleistocene in age. To start with I initially compared this Calcaneum to another in my collection from the same formation I'd previously identified as Cervid (likely Odocoileus) that seemed to be a similar size, but I was immediately struck by how different they looked excluding size. That inevitably lead to searching the wonderful comparative photos of the venerable Harry Pristis on this forum which in turn eventually lead me to this thread; The image Harry Pristis posted with his first response had a calcaneum labeled simply "cat" and the similarity with my specimen had me looking for comparisons of various Felid calcaneum. Comparisons with the photo below (again by Harry Prisitis) initially had me ruling out Puma concolor as a likely candidate. But at that point I started searching for any 3d models of calcaneum to use for comparison and the two that looked closest were these; https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/mountain-lion-calcaneus-2de1fc24f1d445f3bc6701b40e22d606 https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/mscc098-puma-concolor-juvenile-left-calcanium-feb2092d9fc04ba98fa4ed1cbc22a877 However those models don't give dimensions so I jogged on over to; http://www.boneid.net/product/florida-panther-puma-concolor-left-calcaneus-superior-view/ which places that specimen ID'd as Puma concolor at just over 7cm in total length. Mine is just under 7cm and compares favorably to those photos as well. Finally a further search lead me to these two figures from different academic papers; https://www.researchgate.net/figure/3D-landmarks-shown-on-the-calcaneum-of-a-mountain-lion-Puma-concolor-in-laterodistal_fig2_313698350 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/1-7-anterior-view-8-14-medial-view-of-calcaneal-elements-of-extant-carnivorans-1-8_fig3_332234760 At which point I was confident enough in my ID to send photos along to Dr. Bakker and David Temple of the Houston Museum of Natural Science for their consideration. While Dr. B was initially unsure thinking the specimen was too straight in overall profile, David Temple was eventually convinced when provided with the above sources used for identification. I'm still not certain whether Dr. B has been convinced or whether he might prefer Felid Indet. for the time being, but with the fossil in hand I've thrown all caution to the wind and stuck with Puma concolor for now, but I consider any identification subject to revision when presented with additional data. Thanks! -CDiggs

Hello ! For my first post I want to show you some mammal teeth. I don't have a lot of informations about them, probably from North Africa. I don't know their age but all are mineralized so not that recent. I can add the sizes if it's very necessary. Some of them are very characteristics so I hope that an ID is possible. There are I think Rhinocerotidae, maybe Camelidae and others... I'm not good with mammal, all the infos are welcome ! Thanks for your help !

I posted this photos in my "Fossil Finds from the Peace River" thread in Member Collections. PrehistoricFlorida posted a reply in which he questioned the tentative ID I had for the piece, so I decided to repost it here & let all of you have a go at a solid ID on it. From my original post in Member Collections: "This one I didn't find myself. A rock shop near my job back in Florida had a "bone box" of broken fossil parts from the Peace River that a diver would sell in bulk to the owner. The owner would then resell the parts for $1 per piece. I saw this in the box & thought "That looks odd" & bought it. Looking through reference books, and talking to Tampa Bay Fossil Club members, we came to the tentative conclusion that it's the proximal end of the ulna of a sabertooth." A further comment I made on the piece was that the club members also said it was bigger than comparable sabertooth bones they had seen.