Ancient Roar from Tibet: Panthera blytheae
The more active you are in real life, the less time available to contribute to the blog. Some people seem miraculously able to avoid this inverse proportionality, but I am yet to find a way to do it… So, I have been unable to update you on many exciting things that have been going on lately. Now let me at least share the excitement of a new discovery by my paleontologist friends Jack Tseng, Xiaoming Wang and colleagues: an amazing collection of fossils of what seems to be the oldest pantherine cat known this far, coming from latest Miocene-earliest Pliocene deposits in the Tibetan plateau. A somewhat crushed but complete skull was the basis for may reconstruction of the life appearance of this new species of big cat, named Panthera blytheae by its discoverers. You can see the 2D illustration right here:
I have also uploaded a mini-video of the reconstruction process. Check the youtube link here:
Finally, here is a link to the academic paper describing the new species:
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1774/20132686.full?sid=5059eabb-22ed-4ec0-ad89-c9123eba4417
Posted on 13/11/2013, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 5 Comments.
chasing sabretooths 
id love to see a reconstruction in-situe I-e in a setting like mountains
Yeah, that would be lovely. I hope there will be an opportunity to do that in the future. The site has indeed yielded an interesting fauna with several species of herbivores and carnivores.
thanks I would want to go to that time and place if I could do to see whats theres
When the news of this exploded all over the Internet I wondered who made the beautiful illustration that really brought the discovery to life. I should have known it was you!
great painting