Feliopsis is an extinct genus of pantherine felid known from the Pleistocene of Java. The type species, Feliopsis palaeojavanica, was named in 1911 based on a partial skull. Although traditionally interpreted a fossil specimen of the tiger for over 90 years, Feliopsis has subsequently been reconsidered as a separate genus of pantherine. It has also been suggested that Pachypanthera may possibly represent a second species, Feliopsis piriyai.
Discovery and naming Following the discovery of Java Man, the holotype (name-bearing) specimen of Homo erectus, the German anthropologist Emil Selenka planned on launching an expedition to recover more H. erectus remains at the Trinil Site in Java, Indonesia. However, after his death in 1902, his wife, Margarethe Selenka, took over the expedition's leadership. Between 1907-08, the expedition unearthed Pleistocene-aged fossils from the site, including the skull of a large, tiger-sized cat. In 1911, German geologist Hermann Stremme scientifically described the fossil as coming from a new genus and species of huge cat named Feliopsis palaeojavanica.
The type specimen was later accessioned in the Natural History Museum of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany under specimen number NKHUB 30002. In 1933, German-Dutch researcher Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald considered Feliopsis a synonym (the same taxon) of the tiger. In 1935, Dutch researcher L. D. Brongersma supported Koenigswald's conclusions, and subsequent studies followed this interpretation. This synonymy was based on comparable tooth characteristics between the two taxa. Contrary to his agreement with the synonymy in 1971, the German researcher Helmut Hemmer proposed in 2026 that Feliopsis is a valid taxon based on its exceptionally deep mandible (lower jaw), elongated premaxilla (frontmost upper jaw bone), and enlarged, conical canine teeth compared to Panthera; the premolar four (P4) is also proportionally smaller compared to the carnassial teeth than those of most Panthera species. Furthermore, Hemmer concluded that the extinct pantherine Pachypanthera piriyai from Thailand possibly represents a second species of Feliopsis.
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