Plio-scenes

I don't remember reading about an European jaguar and now I see it is the oldest Panthera species known. Thanks for your wonderful pictures and for bringing some knowledge to distracted people like me.

Many thanks to you both Andreas and Rogério!

     Several years ago, in french paleontology litterature, it was called "toscan lion" because the first fossiles had been discovered in Arno valley, close Firenze. It was described as a little smaller than the cave lion (Panthera spalaea) so, much bigger than nowodays american jaguar and less specialised too, with longer tail and legs.

    We have difficulties to imagine jaguars out of Central and North America but the genus seems to be appeared first in Eurasia before reaching, at first, North America and later, South America during ice ages when appeared Panama isthmus. Then, he became extinct everywhere except in Central and South America!

     It seemed to me that this so atypic Papo jaguar with its long tail and legs, could play the role! :)

Excellent rescue Alain, the strange Papo Jaguar finally has a place in the taxonomy

Thank you Christophe!

At first, I wanted to custom it in European leopard but when I saw the european jaguar reconstructions, I realised it was matching perfectly with! :)

Caracal wrote:

Many thanks to you both Andreas and Rogério!

     Several years ago, in french paleontology litterature, it was called "toscan lion" because the first fossiles had been discovered in Arno valley, close Firenze. It was described as a little smaller than the cave lion (Panthera spalaea) so, much bigger than nowodays american jaguar and less specialised too, with longer tail and legs.

    We have difficulties to imagine jaguars out of Central and North America but the genus seems to be appeared first in Eurasia before reaching, at first, North America and later, South America during ice ages when appeared Panama isthmus. Then, he became extinct everywhere except in Central and South America!

     It seemed to me that this so atypic Papo jaguar with its long tail and legs, could play the role! :)

Your description of the creature matches perfectly the Papo figure so it is a excellent idea for sure.
This Papo jaguar, is in my opinion, one of the figures which is closest in artistic quality to the Papo tiger walking and the original lioness. It is a very beautiful figure, its problem is that it is not as faithful to the real species as the ones I mentioned. Though, with this idea, you give a prefect representation to a very beautiful figure.

Thank you Rogério! You are perfectly right, this model is of the same high quality than the walking tiger and lioness though not so accurate!