Oldest Big Cat Fossil Unearthed in Tibet Indicates Asian Origin of the Species

A team of paleontologists has unearthed what might be the oldest big cat fossil from the remote regions of the Tibetan plateau. This new discovery debunks the previous theory about the evolutionary history of the feline family.

DNA analysis of the skull fragments that were discovered during the 2010 expedition held in Zanda Basin, southwestern Tibet, suggests that the fossil belonged to the previously unknown species called Panthera blythea that date back some 4.1-5.9 million years , says BBC.

The discovery of the ancient prowler debunks the previous theory that said the big cats like leopards and tigers might have evolved from Africa.

Further anatomical and DNA analysis also confirm that the newly discovered specimen is not a direct ancestor of the big cats that include lions, jaguar, tigers but it is definitely closely related to the snow leopard, reports the Washington Post.

"This cat is a sister of living snow leopards -- it has a broad forehead and a short face. But it's a little smaller -- the size of clouded leopards," said the paper's lead author, Dr. Jack Tseng of the University of Southern California. "This ties up a lot of questions we had on how these animals evolved and spread throughout the world. Biologists had hypothesized that big cats originated in Asia. But there was a division between the DNA data and the fossil record."

Prior to this find, the biggest cat fossil was discovered in Tanzania that dated back some 3.7 million years. This find is the like the missing piece in the puzzle as DNA evidence shows that the pantherinae subfamily deviated from the other feline family that includes domestic cats and lynxes some 6.37 million years ago.  

It is estimated that the ancient big cats mostly split from the feline subfamily some 10-11 million years ago. This also confirms that central Asia was the ancestral home of these cats.

"These fossils are the oldest, but they're by no means the most primitive," Tseng told LiveScience. "There is some big cat out there that has yet to be described."

The findings were documented in the journal of the Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences.