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Anyone with a Long-Face? Craniofacial Evolutionary Allometry (CREA) in a Family of Short-Faced Mammals, the Felidae

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Abstract

Among adults of closely related species, a trend in craniofacial evolutionary allometry (CREA) for larger taxa to be long-faced and smaller ones to have paedomorphic aspects, such as proportionally smaller snouts and larger braincases, has been demonstrated in some mammals and two bird lineages. Nevertheless, whether this may represent a ‘rule’ with few exceptions is still an open question. In this context, Felidae is a particularly interesting family to study because, although its members are short-faced, previous research did suggest relative facial elongation in larger living representatives. Using geometric morphometrics, based on two sets of anatomical landmarks, and traditional morphometrics, for comparing relative lengths of the palate and basicranium, we performed a series of standard and comparative allometric regressions in the Felidae and its two subfamilies. All analyses consistently supported the CREA pattern, with only one minor exception in the geometric morphometric analysis of Pantherinae: the genus Neofelis. With its unusually long canines, Neofelis species seem to have a relatively narrow cranium and long face, despite being smaller than other big cats. In spite of this, overall, our findings strengthen the possibility that the CREA pattern might indeed be a ‘rule’ among mammals, raising questions on the processes behind it and suggesting future directions for its study.

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Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to all scientists and institutions who made pictures of crania freely available on their websites, and also to Mike Collyer and Dean Adams for help with geomorph, to Marko Djurakic for suggestions on R scripts, and to Jim Rohlf and Liam Revell for their advice on MA regressions. We are in debt also to SYNTHESYS, an EC-funded Project for an integrated European infrastructure for natural history collections, for supporting both the previous study on CREA in placentals and its follow up in 2015.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Biologiche, Geologiche ed Ambientali, Università di Bologna, Via Selmi, 3, 40126, Bologna, Italy

    Davide Tamagnini

  2. Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology, School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

    Carlo Meloro

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche e Geologiche, Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Via Campi, 103, 41125, Modena, Italy

    Andrea Cardini

  4. School of Anatomy, Physiology and Human Biology, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Andrea Cardini

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  1. Davide Tamagnini
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Correspondence to Andrea Cardini.

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Tamagnini, D., Meloro, C. & Cardini, A. Anyone with a Long-Face? Craniofacial Evolutionary Allometry (CREA) in a Family of Short-Faced Mammals, the Felidae. Evol Biol 44, 476–495 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-017-9421-z

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