Panthera tigris soloensis Temporal range: | |
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Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Suborder: | Feliformia |
Family: | Felidae |
Subfamily: | Pantherinae |
Genus: | Panthera |
Species: | |
Subspecies: | †P. t. soloensis |
Trinomial name | |
†Panthera tigris soloensis Koenigswald, 1933 | |
Synonyms [1] [2] | |
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Panthera tigris soloensis, known as the Ngandong tiger, [3] is an extinct subspecies of the modern tiger species. It inhabited the Sundaland region of Indonesia during the Pleistocene epoch. [4]
Fossils of P. t. soloensis were excavated primarily near the village of Ngandong, hence the common name. Only seven fossils are known, making study of the animal difficult. [3]
Some remains of P. t. soloensis suggest that it would have been about the size of a modern Bengal tiger. However, given the size of other remains, it may have been larger than a modern tiger. A large male could have weighed around 400 kg (880 lb), in which case it would have been heavier than the largest extant tiger subspecies, [3] rendering it among the largest felids known to have ever lived. [5] In 2016, P. t. soloensis was estimated to weigh 184 kg on average, with the largest specimen estimates to weigh 298 kg. [6]
In addition to the remains of the Ngandong tiger, many other fossils from the same era have been discovered in Ngandong, like the proboscideans Stegodon trigonocephalus and Elephas hysudrindicus , the bovines Bubalus palaeokerabau and Bos palaesondaicus , the extant perissodactyls Tapirus indicus and Rhinoceros sondaicus , and a great variety of cervine species. Homo erectus soloensis fossils are also known from the area. [7]