Cave Lion
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| Panthera leo spelaea Goldfuss, 1810 |
The cave lion, also known as the European or Eurasian cave lion, is an extinct feline known from fossils and a wide variety of prehistoric art.
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[edit] Size
This cat was one of the largest cats of all time, matched only by the Amur tiger and the unnatural Liger and is also the largest species of lion to have ever existed. The cave lion specimens found were 3.5 m (11.5 ft) in length (25% larger than today's largest African lions), with an estimated male weight of between 270 kg (600 lb) and 320 kg (700 lb), and a typical female weighing 175 kg (385 lb).
[edit] Environment
The cave lion lived from 300,000 to 10,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch. It apparently went extinct about 10,000 years ago, during the Wisconsin glaciation, though there are some indications it may have existed as recently as 2,000 years ago, in the Balkans.[citation needed] It ranged across Europe and Asia, from England all the way to Siberia. Its habitat was the steppes in the north, and the semi-arid deserts in the south.
It is known from Paleolithic cave paintings, ivory carvings, and clay busts. These representations indicate that cave lions had protruding ears, tufted tails, faint tiger-like stripes, and that at least some males had a "ruff" or primitive mane around their neck. Other artifacts indicate that they played a role in Paleolithic religions.
They likely preyed on the large, herbivorous animals of their time, including primitive horses. Their extinction may have been related to the Holocene extinction event, which wiped out most of their megafauna prey. Cave paintings and remains found in the refuse piles of ancient camp sites indicate that they were hunted by early humans, which may have also contributed to their demise.
[edit] Classification
It is normally considered a subspecies of lion, with the scientific name of Panthera leo spelaea (which means "cave lion" in Latin); but it is occasionally considered a species in its own right, under the name Panthera spelaea. At least one authority, based on a comparison of skull shapes, considers the cave lion to be more closely related to the tiger, which would result in the formal name Panthera tigris spelaea (Groiss, 1996). However, recent genetic work (Burger 2004) shows that it was a close but separate relative of the modern lion.
[edit] History
The earliest lion was the European "jaguar" Panthera gombaszoegensis, which lived about 1.5 million years ago; remains have been found in both Italy and Germany. More immediate ancestors are the Panthera leo fossils from the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa, a primitive lion with tiger characteristics, that first appeared about 500,000 years ago; and the Panthera youngi from Choukoutien, China, which lived about 350,000 years ago, and is apparently an ancestor of both the cave lion and the American lion.
[edit] References
- Burger, Joachim et al. (2004): Molecular phylogeny of the extinct cave lion Panthera leo spelaea. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. Vol.30, p.841-849. PDF fulltext
- Groiss, J. Th. (1996): Der Höhlentiger Panthera tigris spelaea (Goldfuss). Neues Jahrb. Geol. Paläont. Mh. Vol.7, p.399–414.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Prehistoric cats and prehistoric cat-like creatures, from the Messybeast Cat Resource Archive.
- American lion, by C. R. Harrington, from Yukon Beringia Interpretative Center.
- The mammoth and the flood, volume 5, chapter 1, by Hans Krause.
- Hoyle and cavetigers, from the Dinosaur Mailing List. (Groiss)
