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A mysterious jawbone leads to DNA analysis to identify first known lineage of prehistoric tigers that lived in northeast China and never evolved into modern species
- The lineage is the first known split in the tiger’s evolutionary history that did not eventually lead to modern species
- The team used DNA analysis on a piece of a jawbone that had previously been misidentified as belonging to a hyena
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A team of scientists in China used DNA analysis of a fossil found in northeast China to identify what they believe is a lineage of tigers that diverged from today’s modern felines approximately 268,000 years ago.
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The proposed evolutionary split would have happened far earlier than the previously known divergence around 125,000 years ago when what would become South China tigers (Panthera tigris amoyensis) split from what eventually became the five other living species of tigers.
The scientists believe the newly discovered lineage of tigers evolved independently from modern tigers before eventually going extinct at an unknown date, according to a paper published in late July in Royal Society, a peer-reviewed journal.
Sheng Guilian, a study author and professor at China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) Future City Campus, told the South China Morning Post that the team was able to build an evolutionary tree using DNA and molecular analysis that allowed them to identify when different tiger species diverged.
The researchers analysed DNA samples of 40 modern tigers spread across the six living species, as well as one lion and one snow leopard.
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“The tree shows that this new tiger is in another branch of the tree and formed a sister clade to all modern tigers,” Sheng said.
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