Himalayan fossils of the oldest known pantherine establish ancient origin of big cats.
Pantherine felids ('big cats') include the largest living cats, apex predators in their respective ecosystems. They are also the earliest diverging living cat lineage, and thus are important for understanding the evolution of all subsequent felid groups. Although the oldest pantherine fossils occur in Africa, molecular phylogenies point to Asia as their region of origin. This paradox cannot be reconciled using current knowledge, mainly because early big cat fossils are exceedingly rare and fragmentary. Here, we report the discovery of a fossil pantherine from the Tibetan Himalaya, with an age of Late Miocene-Early Pliocene, replacing African records as the oldest pantherine. A 'total evidence' phylogenetic analysis of pantherines indicates that the new cat is closely related to the snow leopard and exhibits intermediate characteristics on the evolutionary line to the largest cats. Historical biogeographic models provide robust support for the Asian origin of pantherines. The combined analyses indicate that 75% of the divergence events in the pantherine lineage extended back to the Miocene, up to 7 Myr earlier than previously estimated. The deeper evolutionary origin of big cats revealed by the new fossils and analyses indicate a close association between Tibetan Plateau uplift and diversification of the earliest living cats.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, , Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, , 900 Exposition Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA, Division of Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, , New York, NY 10024, USA, Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, , Beijing 100044, People's Republic of China, Department of Paleobiology and Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, The Smithsonian Institution (NHB, MRC 121), , PO Box 37012, Washington, DC 20013-7012, USA, The George C. Page Museum, , 5801 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036, USA, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta, , Edmonton, Canada , T6G 2E9, Gansu Provincial Museum, , Lanzhou 730050, People's Republic of China.
Z Jack
ZJ
Tseng
Xiaoming
X
Wang
Graham J
GJ
Slater
Gary T
GT
Takeuchi
Qiang
Q
Li
Juan
J
Liu
Guangpu
G
Xie
D000818:Animals; D045989:Felidae / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification; D005580:Fossils; D049810:Genetic Speciation; D005843:Geography; D010802:Phylogeny; D012886:Skull / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D018609:Tibet
Asia; Felidae; Himalaya; Miocene; Pantherinae; first appearance