By: Michele Berger, 11/13/2013
Researchers in the Himalayas discovered the remains of the oldest known big cat. A fossil from Panthera blytheae, an animal closely related to the snow leopard and exhibiting characteristics similar to other big cats, lived nearly 6 million years ago, much earlier than previous estimates for animals of this lineage, according to a paper published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It also came from Tibet rather than Africa, where the oldest fossils of this type have been found.
The researchers from the University of Southern California and several natural history museums in the United States and Canada, reported their findings online yesterday. “These new fossils fill in a huge time gap,” paleobiologist Jack Tseng of the American Museum of Natural History told National Geographic.
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