In the journal plos one by scientists from the National Museum of Scotland Edinburgh published a detailed description of the oldest tiger skull found in China as early as 2004. Age finds roughly determined 2,16-2,55million years. Details reports LiveScience website .
Skull found in near the town of Lunan District in the northern Chinese province of Gansu , slightly less than the skull of modern tiger, but is almost identical with it in shape and already has all the typical tiger features, such as the nose and large udlinnenny lower fangs.
Fossil tiger named Panthera zdanskyi, in honor of a prominent Austrian anthropologist Zhdanskogo Otto .
It is the oldest known today members of the subfamily of big cats , and the place of its discovery is of particular importance. For decades paleozoologists arguing about Where have gone the big cats. As their possible ancestral home called South China, North China and even the north of Siberia. The new findings suggest rather in favor of the second version.
It will be interesting to follow the further discoveries of fossil cats, in China, and not only that: it will give us a fuller picture of the spread of members of the family and fill the white spots tiger pedigree, says Andrew Kitchener, one of the leading authors of the study. Clarification of the dating of the remains Panthera zdanskyi also will more accurately determine its position on the evolutionary tree.
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