Mammalia: Felidae) in North America

FOSSIL PUMA (MAMMALIA: FELIDAE) IN NORTH AMERICA by BJÖRN KURTÉN (Department of Geologyand PaleontologyUniversity of Helsinki) SUMMARY Fossil finds of Felis (Puma) from North America are listed and described. They range in time from the late Blancan to the sub-Recent. Blancan and Irvingtonian material is referred to F. inexpectata,Rancholabrean and later to F. concolor.The extinct F. inexpectatadiffers from F. concolorin its larger size and different dental and limb proportions and probably was adapted to a more cursorial mode of predation. Sparse fossil remains of a still older, smaller form may represent the ancestry of F. inexpectataand a relationship to certain Old World felids, especially "Panthera" schaubi, is possible. Evidence of a transition in Irvingtonian-Rancholabrean times may suggest that F. inexpectatawas ancestral to the living pumas. Rancholabrean pumas show north-south clines in size analogous to that in the Recent population. I. INTRODUCTION Fossil remains of puma-like felids are not uncommon in Pleistocene deposits in North America. In 1941 SIMPSON reviewed the material that had been published up to then, and important new material was furnished by SAVAGE (1960). The present contribution is a critical survey of material referable to the subgenus Puma Jardine ( 1834) and studied by me at various institutions in the years 1959, 1961, 1963-64 and 1970-72. It includes most of the specimens referred to by SIMPSON, some material published after 1941 and a number of unpublished finds. A previous paper (KURTTN, 1973b) describes the geographic, sexual and individual size variation in Recent puma and lists the Recent collections used for comparison with the fossils. The subgenus Puma is present in three North American land mam- mal ages, the Blancan (late Pliocene), Irvingtonian (early and middle Pleistocene) and Rancholabrean (late Pleistocene). Recent work on paleomagnetic stratigraphy (LINDSAY, pers. com.) posits the Blancan/ Irvingtonian boundary at about 1.9 m.y. BP which coincides closely with the Pliocene/Pleistocene boundary as established in the type area in northern Italy (see BANDY & WILCOXON, 1970). Thus it would seem that the Blancan came to an end well before the onset of the first of the Author's address: Department of Geology and Paleontology, Snellmansgatan 5, 00170 Helsingfors 17, Finland. 503 "classical" North American glaciations, the Nebraskan (COOKE, 1972). The Irvingtonian/Rancholabrean transition is placed in the early Illinoian (COOKE, op.cit.). II. ANNOTATED LIST OF FOSSILS 1. Felis (Puma) inexpectata (Cope) Crocuta inexpectataCope, 1895. Uncia inexpectataCope, 1899 Felis longicrusBrown, 1908 Felis cougarBrown, 1908 (corruption of F. couguarKerr, 1792) Felis studeri Savage, 1960 A. Blancan Cita Canyon, Randall Co., Texas (JoHNSTOrr & SAVAGE, 1955). WT 629, part of cranium, type Felis studeri; 563 palate, 1218 RL mandible (all probably same individual as type); 1671 palate, 1918 L, 1236 R mandible, 1758 1032 R humerus, LP3,748 RLLMl. radii, Limb ulnae, bones 569in R two femur, size groups.1031 R Largetibia, (cf,608 male),R, 1904 WT L calcaneum. Small (if. female), WT 568 R humerus, 749 L, 1869 R ulna, 568 L, 570 R femur and tibia, 1679 L tibia, 1321 R, 1757 L calcaneum. Metapodials (reference uncertain), WT 2426 R MC 3-4, 574 L MC 2-4,) MT 2-3, 2434 R MT 3, 2467 L MT 3, 1145 R MT 3, 2 L MT 3, L MT 4, 2 R MT 4, 2 L MT 5. The age is late Blancan, modally just below the Gauss/Matuyama magnetozone boundary, ca. 2.5 m.y. (LINDSAY et al., 1974). The cranial and dental material was described in detail by SAVAGE (1960) and little can be added. Puma-like characters are seen, for in- stance, in the skull architecture, which agrees with the mode of allomet- ric growth in the modern species; in the dentition, e.g., the shortness of P4 relative to Mi ; in the mental foramina, which differ from those in other large felines (SAVAGE, 1960: 331-332). Distinctive characters of the Blancan puma, compared with F. concolor, include larger size, relatively smaller canine teeth and relatively greater bicondylar width. They indicate, as SAVAGE concluded, that the Blancan form differs specifically from the Recent. The limb bones, as SAVAGE noted, pose a problem. Leaving aside some very large bones which may be referred to Ischyrosmilus (MAWBY, 1965), there are felid limb bones in various size classes, two of which could belong to the Blancan puma: one group decidedly larger than those in modern F. concolor, and another about the same size as in large modern puma. The latter group, however, is morphologically heter- ogeneous. The material may be annotated as follows. .

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