''Panthera tigris trinilensis'', known as the Trinil tiger, is an extinct

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

subspecies In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...

dating from about 1.2 million years ago that was found at the locality of

Trinil Trinil is a palaeoanthropological site on the banks of the Bengawan Solo River in Ngawi Regency, East Java Province, Indonesia. It was at this site in 1891 that the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois discovered the first early hominin remains to be ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

. The fossil remains are now stored in the Dubois Collection of the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. In 2021, with 7 ...

Leiden Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...

, the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Although these fossils have been found on Java, the Trinil tiger is probably not a direct ancestor of the

Javan tiger The Javan tiger was a ''Panthera tigris sondaica'' population native to the Indonesian island of Java until the mid-1970s. It was hunted to extinction, and its natural habitat converted for agricultural land use and infrastructure. It was one of ...

. The Trinil tiger probably became extinct 50,000 years ago. The

Bali tiger The Bali tiger was a '' Panthera tigris sondaica'' population on the Indonesian island of Bali which has been extinct since the 1950s. It was formerly regarded as a distinct tiger subspecies with the scientific name ''Panthera tigris balica' ...

was also not closely related to the Trinil because of their time differences. It lived in Indonesia, particularly in Java and Trinil, and according to some zoologists, it could be the ancestor of all known Indonesian subspecies. Perhaps, East Asia was a center of the origin of Pantherinae. The oldest tiger fossils found in Early Pleistocene Java show that about two million years ago, tigers were already quite common in East Asia. However, the glacial and interglacial climatic variations and other geological events may have caused repeated geographic changes in the area.

Taxonomy

Much research has been done but there is not much knowledge about this subspecies. Scientists have discovered a fossil that is believed to belong to the Trinil tiger. However, there were doubts that the fossil could belong to the Trinil tiger because it was too big to belong to it. But now it is thought that it might have been a bit smaller than the Bengal tigers and similar to the Indochinese tiger's size. Food competition among large carnivores is a major incentive to increase body weight, so that this Pleistocene subspecies's weight was slightly less than today's

Bengal tiger The Bengal tiger is a population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies. It ranks among the biggest wild cats alive today. It is considered to belong to the world's charismatic megafauna. The tiger is estimated to have been present in ...

s and weighed about .

Notes and references

References

tigris trinilensis tigris trinilensis Pleistocene carnivorans Pleistocene mammals of Asia Extinct animals of Indonesia Fossil taxa described in 1908 {{feline-stub

Taxonomy

See also

Notes and references

References