New fossil find reveals big cat origins.

The big cats, such as lions, tigers and leopards, are among some of the most successful predators on the planet, but when and where did they first arrive on earth?

Well a new fossil find may just give us the answer that has been long sought after!

Before now, the oldest big cat fossil was found on the continent of Africa and suggested that big cats were around 3.8 million years old. However, DNA comparisons have lead scientists to believe that big cats are in fact as old as 6 million years old...and now they have the bones to prove it.

Whilst carrying out their usual research and scoping out possible new digging sites on the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, Jack Tseng and his colleagues came across a discovery that is set to change scientific history. They discovered the skull of an ancient big cat - Panthera blytheae.

Usually digging up the bones of the native hoofed animals and the occasional rhino, this discovery brought excitement to the team as they carefully removed the remains from the fossil-rich ground.

Photo Credit: Gary Takeuchi

After further examination back in the Los Angeles lab, the scientists discovered that the animal they had dug up was in fact the ancient sister to the modern snow leopard. They had expected the remains to belong to the common ancestor of all living felids but bone comparisons put the animal distinctly on the snow leopard line.

Big cats were originally native to all continents except Australia and Antarctica and moved freely across continents when land bridges occurred due to a drop in sea levels.  When these land bridges disappeared, populations were isolated and eventually adapted and evolved to survive in their new environments. These adaptations eventually meant that original populations could no longer breed, giving rise to new species. This is how the big cat species that we know today would have come about and how they ended up in their current homes.

This discovery of the P. Blytheae skull, along with the remains of other species found nearby, help to paint a clear image of what the environment was like when these animals roamed the Tibetan Plateau and how they adapted and survived in the constant cold climates of that time.

Although this discovery was extremely exciting, it is not the end of the big cat story. As it was the sister of a modern snow leopard, it is clearly not the oldest fossil of its kind. Fossils still remain out there of the first ever common ancestors of the felines.

Scientists say that the more that is known about the success of ancient big cats under different environmental conditions, the easier it will be to predict their success to future changes.

Tseng says "studying these origins isn't just a sentimental things, in some ways it's a survival thing".