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Sept 7, 2010, 11:43pm

CARNIVORA :: CARNIVORA :: Zoological Questions, Debate & Discussion. :: Clouded leopard evolution

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Topic: Clouded leopard evolution (Read 1,070 times)

Homotherium
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Clouded leopard evolution
« Thread Started on Mar 9, 2010, 7:58pm »

Do u have some matherial about this?
How we know the clouded leopard is member of subfamily Pantherinae. Snow leopard is too. I have read that snow leopard is the basal pantherine. But clouded leopard looks more primitive. I addition snow leopard is close to tiger - true panthera.
So maybe clouded leopard is a basal pantherine?

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Frank
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Re: Clouded leopard evolution
« Reply #1 on Mar 10, 2010, 8:22am »

If I recall correctly, the clouded leopard is most closely related to the sabre-toothed tigers with regard to extant felids. It's older than the lion, tiger, jaguar, or leopard, which explains why it doesn't share the genus with those felids in the binomial nomenclature naming system. For more on the phylogeny of the clouded leopard, I'd recommend you visit your local library and see if they have a copy of Wild Cats of the World.

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Re: Clouded leopard evolution
« Reply #2 on Mar 10, 2010, 4:57pm »

Just on the skull , according to this study the Clouded Leopard resembles more Primitive Saber-tooth cats like Dinofelis rather than Derived Sabertoothed cats like Smilodon :

1.the Primitive Sabertooths : had powerful bites like modern felines, and smaller 'sabertooth canines' than derived sabertooths. eg. Dinofelis

2. the Derived Sabertooths had weak bite forces, but longer 'sabertooth canines'. eg. Smilodon

Jul 30, 2008, 5:34pm, Taipan wrote:

Evolution of Skull & Mandible Shape in Felines.

A new study from Per Christiansen, traces the evolution of Skull & Mandible Shape in Felines.

Basically two divergent paths for the two subgroups of felines :
1. the Feline cats (including all modern species) and;
2. the Sabertoothed cats (which are all extinct).

As for the Feline cats : Their skulls exhibit a gradual increase in size and a resulting difference in shape to cater for bite force, hence larger modern cats (lions & tigers) have more elongated skulls than do smaller modern cats.

Bobcat Skull
[image]

Tiger Skull
[image]

"Modern cats appear to have quite different-looking skulls depending on their size, and small cats appear all to have rather abbreviated, tall and domed crania, whereas the skulls in large cats, such as lions, tigers, or leopards, are much more elongated and rectangular. Previously these criteria have been used to divide the modern cats into two distinct sub-groups, the small and large cats, which were inferred to differ in terms of evolutionary anatomy. However, no such sub-groups exist, and the actual shape of the skull shows a gradual transition from the smallest to the largest species.

The most powerful evolutionary selective driving factor behind skull shape in modern cats appears to have been the need to administer a powerful, precise killing-bite, irrespective of body size – this is a very important part of prey capture and killing in all cats. A cat's brain size decreases, relative to the size of its body, as the size of the cat increases and thus takes up less room in the back of the skull. Since a powerful killing bite entails large, powerful jaw muscles, this imposes strict limits on skull shape, suggesting that big cats simply need more elongated skulls with large muscle crests in order to maintain the ability to deliver a very powerful killing bite."

As for the Sabertoothed Cats: Two groups existed,
1.the Primitive Sabertooths : had powerful bites like modern felines, and smaller 'sabertooth canines' than derived sabertooths. eg. Dinofelis

[image]

2. the Derived Sabertooths had weak bite forces, but longer 'sabertooth canines'. eg. Smilodons

[image]

Sabertoothed cats were subjected to very different evolutionary driving forces. The most important factor governing their evolution seems to have been the need to administer a precise killing bite with a shearing action to the throat of large prey that will kill it very quickly. This led to a major re-organisation of the shape of the entire skull and mandible in the advanced species compared to all extant cats, and also to smaller, more primitive sabertoothed cats. The advanced sabertoothed cats had an entirely different skull and mandible shape from any modern cat, and they also differ a lot from more primitive sabertoothed cats, which have smaller upper canines. But this happened at the expense of powerful bite forces.

Primitive sabertoothed cats were capable of administering powerful killing bites, roughly of comparable force to modern cats of the same size, but derived species were only capable of much weaker killing bites. Such a killing style is probably very effective for killing large prey quickly, and this would be advantageous in ecosystems with high predator competition (which appears to have been the case in many extinct ecosystems).

However, this probably caused the derived sabertoothed cats to prey on only a limited variety of large prey species, putting them at risk of extinction if the ecosystems changed too much or too rapidly.

The Clouded Leopard
The Clouded Leopard is anatomically similar to primitive sabertooths, rather than derived sabertooths eg. high bite force & smaller upper 'sabers' canines.

[image]

Anyway, here's the full study for those interested :

Evolution of Skull and Mandible Shape in Cats (Carnivora: Felidae)
Per Christiansen*
Department of Vertibrates, Zoological Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark

Other sites propose other theories:
"It is possible that the clouded leopard represents either a separate convergent evolution, (or trait which appears similar but has developed independently), with the scimitar toothed cats or represents an evolutionary link between the Panthera and the scimitar cats."

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Homotherium
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Re: Clouded leopard evolution
« Reply #3 on Mar 11, 2010, 5:28am »

The skull of cloded leopard more closely to Paramachairodus then the tribe Metailurini.

Yes, CL is older then genus Panthera but is it older then genus Uncia? Uncia is the basal Pantherinae.

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Frank
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Re: Clouded leopard evolution
« Reply #4 on Mar 13, 2010, 4:14am »

Mar 11, 2010, 5:28am, Homotherium wrote:

The skull of cloded leopard more closely to Paramachairodus then the tribe Metailurini.

Yes, CL is older then genus Panthera but is it older then genus Uncia? Uncia is the basal Pantherinae.

Yes.

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