LIONS & TIGERS REVISITED

[darren.naish@port.ac.uk]

George wrote...

> E.g., lions and tigers are skeletally indistinguishable (any putative    
> differences are swamped by individual variation within each species) 

Sorry, this is untrue - thanks to recently published reviews (see Turner 
and Anton) their skulls can be reliably distinguished: in the postcrania 
tigers are generally more robust. Incidentally, most cat workers do not 
think that lions and tigers are particularly closely related: lions are part 
of a 'spotted clade' that includes jaguars and leopards - tigers are 
outside of this group.

"Bacterial poop"

DARREN NAISH 
PALAEOBIOLOGY RESEARCH GROUP
School of Earth, Environmental & Physical Sciences
UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH
Burnaby Building
Burnaby Road                           email: darren.naish@port.ac.uk
Portsmouth UK                          tel: 01703 446718
P01 3QL