Thursday, November 14, 2013
Scientists: Oldest big cat fossil found in Tibet
.jpg "Scientists: Oldest big cat fossil found in Tibet")
A nearly complete skull dug up in Tibet, believed to be closely related to the snow leopard, was estimated to be 4.4 million years old.
LOS ANGELES — 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.
This artist rendering by Mauricio Anton of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows a reconstruction of an extinct big cat, Panthera blytheae, based on skull CT scan data.
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.
In 2010, Tseng and colleagues drove to the Himalayas to go fossil hunting. The team split up to cover more ground. While hiking on a mountaintop, Tseng's wife, Juan Liu, a graduate student, found a trove of scattered bones and radioed others to help collect them. As they started digging, they found a buried cat skull about the size of a large grapefruit.
Scientists: Oldest big cat fossil found in TibetAP Photo: Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Mauricio Ant
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By Alicia Chang of Associated Press
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