504 



PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM 



taken from table 1 of Nelson and Goldman ^ (1933) and table 102 of 

 Merriam and Stock (1932). They are based upon 30 specimens, in- 

 cluding adult males and females of all subspecies, located in the United 

 States National Museum, the American Museum of Natural History, 

 the Chicago Natural History Museum, and the Museum of Compara- 

 tive Zoology. The combination of all these data shows a range of 

 23.4 mm. to 29.2 mm. with a mean of 26.6 mm. and a standard devia- 

 tion of ± 1.64 mm. 



-2-4 



OS -.04 



.04 



4 P atrox 

 o P augusta 

 X P. onca 



I I I I 



SHull length 



Skull width 



_Length of Fourth 

 Upper Premolar 

 Length of 

 Humerus 



- Length of Ulna 



J.ength of Third 

 Metacarpal 



-Length of Femur 



- length of Tibia 



-length of Third 

 Metatarsal 



Figure 97. — Logarithmic-difference graph for the structures listed on the right, using 

 Panthera atrox as the standard of reference and comparing it with P. onca and P. augusta. 

 The numbers given refer to the actual dimensions in millimeters. The point marked 

 327 mm., which is not on any of the three curves, is discussed in footnote 4. 



The deviation of our fossils is 2.8(t, so that the odds against their 

 belonging to any one of the contemporary subspecies of P. onca are 

 195 to 1. The odds against the types of P. augusta and P. veronis 

 being simply exceptionally large jaguars of any subspecies still exist- 

 ing are more than 15,000 to 1. And finally, if no subspecies or species 

 of cat other than the jaguars now surviving existed in Nebraska, 

 Florida, and Tennessee in Pleistocene times, the chance of finding 

 three with the dimensions of these fossils would be 2 x 10"" percent. 

 That is, the odds against it would be 5 trillion to 1 ! We are not, 



* In the paper by Nelson and Goldman appears one anomalous measurement that we have 

 tried to verify, but could not. An adult female of "Felis onca paraguensis," U.S.N.M. 

 No. 4361, from Argentina (San Jos6, Entre Rfos) is recorded as having an upper carnassial 

 of 30.8 mm. length. This is strange for several reasons. It is more than 4 per cent bigger 

 than the next largest record. It is from a female, which would be expected to be smaller 

 than the largest males. And most important of all, it is from an animal not at all large 

 in other dimensions. The skull, for instance, is recorded as measuring only 261 mm., in 

 contrast to those from males of P. paraguensis, P. millert, and P. onca, which run from 

 295 mm. to 302 mm. That a relatively small animal should have so disproportionately large 

 a tooth seems too improbable to be accepted without careful confirmation. Unfortunately 

 the specimen seems to have disappeared, and so we were not able to measure it. Of course, 

 it is not certain that the measurement was inaccurate, but the odds against so large a 

 departure from the mean are about 100 to 1 ; and for such a departure to occur in a 

 relatively small animal seems almost Incredible. We therefore suspect an error in the record. 



