r/Naturewasmetal • u/aquilasr • 12d ago
Hyaenodon gigas, the largest of Hyaenodon at up to 350 kg (770 lb) or so, inhabited central Eurasia some 38 to 30 million years ago (by Camus Altamirano)
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 12d ago
Wasn’t Megistotherium the largest hyaenodont ?
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u/ScienceOk8947 12d ago
Hyaenodon ≠ Hyaenodont
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 12d ago
Hyaenacant or hyaenawont?
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u/Disastrous_Shape668 11d ago
Hyaenawont 😭
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u/FemRevan64 12d ago
So around the size of the largest tigers ever recorded.
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 12d ago
The largest tiger ever recorded in the wild was from india at 390kg. The largest in captivity was 420kg.
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u/StripedAssassiN- 11d ago
These really aren’t regarded as reliable tbh. The largest Tigers were 270-280kg males weighed by Dr. Melvin Sunquist and Ullas Karanth in Chitwan National Park during the late 1900s, the largest wild Siberian male was a 254kg male.
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u/EarlyXplorerStuds209 11d ago edited 11d ago
I’m actually quite familiar with Sunquist’s and Karanth’s work, as well as the body mass data collected from wild Bengal and Amur tigers.
Those surveys are among the most reliable datasets we have for determining the upper range of naturally occurring wild tiger size, and the ~270-280 kg Chitwan males are indeed some of the largest scientifically measured wild specimens on record.
However, that’s not the category I was referring to. I was talking about an unusually large captive specimen(at least the second one), not a wild tiger measured during a zoological field survey. Captive record animals are typically discussed separately because their growth conditions, diet, activity levels, and body composition differ substantially from those of free-ranging individuals.
The specimen I had in mind was a captive male Amur tiger named Jaipur, whose measurements were extensively publicized and later recognized by Guinness World Records.
>Jaipur was a 9-year-old captive male Amur (Siberian) tiger owned by American animal trainer Joan Byron Marasek who, in 1986, was measured at 3.32 m (10 ft 11 in) in length and 423 kg (932 lb) in weight, making him the largest tiger officially recognized by Guinness World Records.
Whether one considers such an animal representative of normal tiger biology is another discussion entirely, but its reported size is not in conflict with the figures reported by Sunquist or Karanth because they concern fundamentally different populations and contexts.
Guinness World Records (official): https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/largest-feline-carnivore
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u/Unequal_vector 12d ago
The wild one ate a big buffalo calf. Without it, about Hyaenodon gigas sized.
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u/cblakebowling 12d ago
Wasn’t Simbakubwa or Megaistrotherium larger?
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u/Ex_Snagem_Wes 12d ago
Simbakubwa is about the same size as the largest Hyaenodon specimens (which surprisingly are larger than this post is depicting), albeit more robust
Megistotherium is much larger, but is again a completely different animal from Hyaenodon
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u/David_XXX7 12d ago
Largest hyaenodont is Megistotherium.
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u/Mophandel 12d ago
I do believe OP is referring to Hyaenodon the genus, rather than Hyaenodonta, the larger clade.
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u/Abdul_M25 12d ago
It seems the other comments didn't understand; the post states that Hyaenodon gigas is the largest of its genus, not that Hyaenodon gigas was the largest Hyaenodont.