World's oldest big cat fossil found in Tibet

A study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveals a remarkable discovery by US and Chinese paleontologists in Tibet – an almost complete skull belonging to what may be the oldest big cat ever found.

 

The newly-discovered species, named Panthera blytheae, is believed to have prowled the cold, unforgiving terrain of the Himalayan hillside between 4.1 and 5.95 million years ago, lending credence to the theory that the evolution of the Pantherine family – which includes lions, tigers, and jaguars – actually traces its roots to Central Asia.

 

An unexpected find

 

Lead author Dr Jack Tseng, a researcher from the American Museum of Natural History, says that the extinct predator was closely related to the modern-day snow leopard. “This cat is a sister of living snow leopards - it has a broad forehead and a short face. But it's a little smaller - the size of clouded leopards.”

 

The fossilized remains of P. blytheae were discovered by Tseng and his associates during an expedition in 2010. The fragmented skull was excavated from a “bone bed”, buried in the midst of an assortment of badger, squirrel, and antelope bones.

 

"It was a typical day of us driving around dirt trails in our SUVs and hiking in to scout out potential sites," Tseng recounted. Prompted by Tseng’s wife, graduate student Juan Liu, the team dug through a deposit of fossils that she found. When the researchers examined a strange-looking bone sticking out of the dirt, they realized that they were looking at the lower mandible of a prehistoric cat. The team eventually uncovered the top part of a skull, and further lab tests revealed that it belonged to a “new” species.

 

 

Filling the gap

 

Prior to this discovery, previously unearthed fossils suggested that big cats originated from Africa, around 3.8 million years ago. However, this new find proposes that the ancestors of today’s feline predators may have stalked Asia two million years earlier than that.

P. blytheae is the pantherine family tree’s “missing link”, in the sense that it “fill[s] in a huge time gap and bring[s] the fossil and molecular data in line," according to Tseng.

 

The discovery of P. blytheae also reveals that big cats did not undergo as many changes as other species over millions of years of evolution.

Julie Meachen a paleontologist from Des Moines University in Iowa, believes that since big cats were naturally effective predators from the start, they didn’t need to adapt as much in order to survive.

“They are so good at what they do that they don't need to change," said Meachen.

 

Himalayan basin:  A haven of evolution?

 

Lars Werdelin, senior curator at Sweden’s renowned Natural History Museum, notes that the discovery reveals something else about the Tibetan Plateau: it may have played an integral role in evolution, not just for big cats, but also for other animals as well.  

 

According to Werdelin, the area may have been "a center of origin of a whole slew of animals that subsequently spread across Eurasia during the cold periods of the ice ages." Werdelin concludes that the inhabitants of the area, having already adapted to such harsh weather conditions, continued to flourish and spread across the world – a hypothesis that Tseng’s team also endorses.

 

Big cats’ oldest ancestor still 'waiting to be found'

 

However, the researchers are certain that P. blytheae isn’t the granddaddy of all big cats. In an interview with Popular Science, Tseng affirmed that "somewhere there is probably a more primitive big cat, waiting to be found."

 

Tseng and his team are looking at doing a lot more digging, particularly in central Asian regions with rocks that date back to the Miocene epoch. — TJD, GMA News