Cave lion. Scientists have discovered a previously unknown subspecies of the African cave lion Ancient cave lion

Joseph Henri Roney Sr.

Cave lion

Abridged translation from French and Orlovskaya

Drawings by L. Durasov

Part one

Chapter 1 Un and Zur

Un, the son of the Bull, loved to visit underground caves. He caught blind fish and colorless crayfish there with Zur, the son of the Earth, the last of the Wa tribe, the Men Without Shoulders, who survived the extermination of his people by the Red Dwarfs.

Un and Zur wandered along the stream all day long underground river. Often its shore was just a narrow stone cornice. Sometimes we had to crawl through a narrow corridor of porphyry, gneiss, and basalt. Zur lit a resin torch from the branches of a turpentine tree, and the crimson flame was reflected in the sparkling quartz arches and in the rapidly flowing waters of the underground stream. Bending over the black water, they watched the pale, colorless animals swimming in it, then walked further, to the place where the road was blocked by a blank granite wall, from under which an underground river noisily burst out. Un and Zur stood for a long time in front of the black wall. How they wanted to overcome this mysterious barrier that the Ulamr tribe encountered six years ago, during their migration from north to south.

Un, the son of the Bull, belonged, according to the custom of the tribe, to his mother's brother. But he preferred his father Nao, the son of Leopard, from whom he inherited a powerful build, tireless lungs and extraordinary acuity of feelings. His hair fell over his shoulders in thick, coarse strands, like the mane of a wild horse; the eyes were the color of gray clay. His enormous physical strength made him a dangerous opponent. But even more than Nao, Un was inclined to be generous if the defeated person lay prostrate on the ground in front of him. Therefore, the Ulamrs, while paying tribute to the strength and courage of Un, treated him with some disdain.

He always hunted alone or together with Zur, whom the Ulamrs despised for his weakness, although no one knew so skillfully how to find stones suitable for making fire and how to make tinder from the soft core of a tree.

Zur had a narrow, flexible body, like a lizard. His shoulders were so sloping that his arms seemed to come straight out of his body. Since time immemorial, all the Vas, the tribe of Men Without Shoulders, have looked like this. Zur thought slowly, but his mind was more sophisticated than that of the people of the Ulamr tribe.

Zur loved being in underground caves even more than Un. His ancestors and the ancestors of his ancestors had always lived in lands abounding in streams and rivers, some of which disappeared under the hills or were lost in the depths of the mountain ranges.

One morning friends were wandering along the river bank. They saw the crimson ball of the sun rise above the horizon and golden light flood the surrounding area. Zur knew that he liked to follow the rushing waves; Un, however, surrendered to this pleasure unconsciously. They headed towards the underground caves. The mountains rose right in front of them - high and inaccessible. Steep, sharp peaks stretched like an endless wall from north to south, and nowhere was a passage visible between them. Un and Zur, like the entire Ulamr tribe, passionately dreamed of overcoming this indestructible barrier.

For more than fifteen years, the Ulamrs, having left their native places, wandered from the northwest to the southeast. Moving south, they soon noticed that the further they went, the richer the land became, and the more abundant the spoils. And gradually people got used to this endless journey.

But a huge one stood in their way Mountain chain, and the tribe's advance south stopped. The Ulamrs searched in vain for a passage among the impregnable stone peaks.

Un and Zur sat down to rest in the reeds, under the black poplars. Three mammoths, huge and majestic, walked along the opposite bank of the river. Antelopes could be seen running in the distance; The rhinoceros appeared from behind a rocky ledge. Excitement took over Nao's son. How he wanted to overcome the space separating him from his prey!

Sighing, he stood up and walked upstream, followed by Zur. Soon they found themselves in front of a dark hole in the rock, from where a river was noisily gushing out. The bats rushed into the darkness, frightened by the appearance of people.

Excited by a thought that suddenly came into his head, Un said to Zur:

There are other lands beyond the mountains!

Zur replied:

The river flows from sunny countries.

People without shoulders have long known that all rivers and streams have a beginning and an end.

The blue darkness of the cave gave way to the darkness of an underground labyrinth. Xur lit one of the resinous branches he had taken with him. But the friends could have done without light - they knew every turn of the underground path so well.

Un and Zur walked all day through gloomy passages along the course of an underground river, jumping over pits and crevices, and in the evening they fell soundly asleep on the shore, having dined on crayfish baked in ash.

At night they were awakened by a sudden shock that seemed to come from the very depths of the mountain. The roar of falling stones and the crackling of crumbling rocks could be heard. Then there was silence. And, not being able to figure out what was going on, the friends fell asleep again.

Vague memories took possession of Zur.

The earth shook,” he said.

Un did not understand Zur’s words and did not try to understand their meaning. His thoughts were short and swift. He could only think about the obstacles that were immediately in front of him, or about the prey he was pursuing. His impatience grew, and he quickened his steps, so that Zur could barely keep up with him. Long before the end of the second day they reached the place where a blank stone wall usually blocked their path.

Xur lit a new resinous torch. A bright flame illuminated the high wall, reflected in countless fractures of the quartz rock.

An astonished exclamation escaped both young men: there was a wide crack in the stone wall!

This is because the earth shook,” said Zur.

With one leap, Un found himself at the edge of the crack. The passage was wide enough to let a person through. Un knew what treacherous traps lurked in the newly split rocks. But his impatience was so great that he, without thinking, squeezed into the blackened stone gap in front of him, so narrow that it was possible to move forward with great difficulty. Zur followed the son of the Bull. Love for his friend made him forget his natural caution.

Soon the passage became so narrow and low that they could barely squeeze between the stones, bent over, almost crawling. The air was hot and stuffy, it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe... Suddenly a sharp ledge of a rock blocked their path.

Angered, Un pulled a stone ax from his belt and struck it at the rocky ledge with such force as if there was an enemy in front of him. The rock shook, and the young men realized that it could be moved. Zur, sticking his torch into a crevice in the wall, began to help Un. The rock began to shake more. They pushed her with all their might. There was a crash, stones fell... The rock swayed and... they heard the dull sound of a heavy block falling. The path was clear.

Having rested a little, the friends moved on. The passage gradually widened. Soon Un and Zur were able to straighten up to their full height, and it became easier to breathe. Finally they found themselves in a vast cave. Un rushed forward with all his might, but soon the darkness forced him to stop: Zur with his torch could not keep up with his fleet-footed friend. But the delay was short-lived. The impatience of the Bull's son was transmitted to the Man without Shoulders, and they moved on with long steps, almost running.

Soon a faint light appeared ahead. It intensified as the young men approached him. Suddenly Un and Zur found themselves at the exit of the cave. In front of them stretched a narrow corridor formed by two sheer granite walls. Above, high above our heads, a strip of dazzling blue sky was visible.

Physician and naturalist Georg August Goldfuss, who found the skull of a cave lion in Franconian Alba.

†Cave lion

Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animals
Type: Chordata
Class: Mammals
Squad: Predatory
Family: Felines
Subfamily: Big cats
Genus: Panthers
View: a lion
Subspecies: Cave lion
Latin name
Panthera leo spelaea
Goldfuss

In Soviet paleontology, on the initiative of Nikolai Vereshchagin, the cave lion was called tigrolev.

Spreading

In Europe, the first lions appeared about 700,000 years ago and belonged to the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis, the so-called Mosbach lion. The fact that it is sometimes also called the cave lion can be misleading. As a rule, the term cave lion refers to a later subspecies Panthera leo spelaea. Mosbach lions reached a length of up to 2.4 m excluding the tail and were half a meter larger modern lions. They were the size of a liger. From this large subspecies came the cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago. It was distributed throughout northern Eurasia and even during the glaciations penetrated deep to the north. In the northeast of Eurasia, a separate subspecies has formed, the so-called East Siberian cave lion ( ), which reached the American continent through the then existing land connection between Chukotka and Alaska. Spreading south, it evolved into the American lion ( Panthera leo atrox). The East Siberian cave lion became extinct at the end of the last major glaciation about 10 thousand years ago. The European cave lion probably became extinct during the same period, but it is possible that it persisted for some time on the Balkan Peninsula. Regarding the lions that existed on it until the beginning of our era, it is unknown whether they were cave lions.

Appearance

The skeleton of an adult male cave lion, found in 1985 near Siegsdorf, Germany, had a height at the withers of 1.20 m and a length of 2.1 m excluding the tail. This corresponds to a very large modern lion. At the same time, the Siegsdorf lion was inferior to many of its relatives. Cave lions were on average 5-10% superior to modern lions, but did not reach huge size Mosbach lions and American lions. Stone Age cave paintings allow us to draw some conclusions about the coloring of the fur and mane of the cave lion. Particularly impressive images of lions have been found in southern France in the Chauvet cave in the Ardèche department, as well as in the Vogelherdhöhle cave in the Swabian Alb. Ancient drawings cave lions They are always shown without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not so impressive. Often this image shows the characteristic tuft on the tail of lions. The coloring of the fur, apparently, was one color.

A well-preserved corpse of a lion cub at the age of several months was discovered in Yakutia, as well as two more slightly worse-preserved specimens.

Lifestyle

Relatives

Unlike the Mosbach lion, regarding the classification of which as Panthera leo fossilis There has always been unanimity among scientists; there has been a long debate about the cave lion, whether it is a lion, a tiger, or even whether it should be distinguished as a separate species. In 2004, German scientists were able to unambiguously identify it using DNA analysis as a subspecies of lion. Thus, the dispute that had existed since the first description of this animal in 1810 was ended. However, the Pleistocene lions of the north formed their own group, distinct from the lions of Africa and Southeast Asia. To this so-called group Spelaea included the Mosbach lion ( P.l. fossilis), cave lion ( P.l. spelaea), East Siberian lion ( P.l. vereshchagini) and American lion ( P.l. atrox). All modern subspecies of lions belong to the group Leo. Both groups separated about 600 thousand years ago. Some fossil specimens of the extinct American lion were larger than the Mosbach lion and were thus among the most major representatives felines that have ever existed. Previously they were considered a separate species, called giant

Cave lion(Panthera leo spelaea), is an extinct subspecies of lions that lived during the Pleistocene period in Europe and Siberia.

The cave lion was probably the largest representative of the cat family, larger than the Ussuri tiger.

For the first time, a German doctor involved in natural sciences described a cave lion from the skull. Georg August Goldfuss.

The lion appeared in Europe about 700 thousand years ago and probably came from Mosbach lion

Mosbach lions were larger than modern lions, the body length was up to 2.5 m (not including the tail), and they were about half a meter taller.

It is from the Mosbach lion that it is believed that the cave lion, which spread throughout Eurasia, originated about 300 thousand years ago.

There was also East Siberian cave a lion , in the north and northeast of Eurasia, probably through Berengia, it also entered America, going to the south of the American continent, where it formed american lion.

American lion

Extinction of the East Siberian and European species Lviv occurred approximately 10 thousand years ago, at the end of the last Valdai (Würm) glaciation.

There is evidence that a European subspecies of the cave lion was found for some time in the Balkans, but it is not clear whether it was a cave lion or another subspecies.

In 1985, near the German town of Siegsdorf, the skeleton of a male cave lion was found, which was just over 2 meters long and 1.2 m high, which approximately corresponded to the parameters of a modern lion.

Cave lions were approximately 5-10 percent taller than modern lions, although they were smaller than American or Mosbach lions.

There are unique Paleolithic rock paintings in the Vogelherdhöle caves of France, in Alsace, and in the south of France, in the Chauvet cave.

The lion was a totem for ancient man, like the cave bear

Lions lived in Europe and northern Asia not only during the interglacial era, but during the glaciations themselves; apparently they were not afraid of the cold, and there was enough food.

In 2004, scientists from Germany managed to find out, as a result of DNA research, that The cave lion is not a separate species, but a subspecies of lion.

During the Pleistocene, northern lions formed their own group, different from African lions and South-Eastern. This group included Mosbach lion, cave lion, East Siberian lion and American lion.

Nowadays, all lion species belong to the so-called “Leo” group, and all lion species began to diverge about 600 thousand years ago.

Some species of the extinct American lion were much larger than the Mosbach lion and were therefore the most large predators cat family that were present on our Earth.

Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) was widespread in the territory southern Eurasia from Greece to India. There are now about 300 individuals preserved in the Gir Wildlife Sanctuary in Gujarat, India.

In the 1990s, to preserve the endangered population, India donated several pairs of Asiatic lions to European zoos.

The Asian or Indian subspecies of lion weighs from 150 to 220 kg, mostly 160-190 kg in males, and 90-150, usually 110-120 kg in females. His mane is not so thick and fits more closely to the body.

The Asiatic lion has a stockier body, which creates a misleading impression of its smaller size compared to the African lion. But the record length of the Asiatic lion is almost three meters.

In India, until about the middle of the last century, lions lived in Punjab, Gujarat and even West Bengal.

On the Kathiyawar Peninsula (in the southwest), in the Gir Forest, a small population of Asiatic lions still remains, but there are less than 150 of them left. These lions were taken under state protection in 1900.

And the last Indian lion was killed in 1884.

Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo), an extinct subspecies of lion, originally common in North Africa. Some lions currently living in captivity probably descend from Barbary lions, but there are no longer purebred representatives of the subspecies among them.

It was the Barbary lions that were used by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 to describe and classify lions. The weight of males ranged from 160 to 250 kg, less often 270 kg, females - from 100 to 170 kg.

Barbary lion, along with the extinct cape lion (Panthera leo melanochaitus), was the largest living subspecies of lion. His most noticeable difference was his particularly thick dark mane, which extended far beyond his shoulders and hung down over his stomach.

The Barbary lion was found throughout the territory in historical times African continent, located north of the Sahara.

The Barbary lion lived, in addition to the North African semi-deserts and savannas, also in the Atlas Mountains. He hunted deer, wild boar and hartebeest (a type of dog-headed monkey).

The ancient Romans often used the Barbary lion in "fun fights" against the Turanian tiger, also extinct, or to fight gladiators.

Spreading firearms and a deliberate policy of extermination of the Barbary lion has led to its population being severely reduced in North Africa and the Atlas Mountains. And in early XVIII century, the Barbary lion almost disappeared from North Africa, leaving only a small range in the northwest.

The last free-living Barbary lion was shot in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains in 1922.

Initially, scientists assumed that Barbary lions became extinct in captivity. However, Moroccan rulers received gifts of lions from the nomadic Berber tribes, even when these animals had already become quite rare.

IN late XIX century in London Zoo There lived a purebred Barbary lion named Sultan.

Those lions that Moroccan King Hassan II donated to the Rabat Zoo in 1970 were probably direct descendants of Barbary lions, at least in terms of phenotype and morphology, they clearly corresponded to the historical description of Barbary lions.

The Addis Ababa Zoo is home to 11 lions that may be descendants of Barbary lions. Their ancestors were the property of Emperor Haile Selassie I.

At the end of the twentieth century, about 50 lions descended from Barbary lived in zoos, however, there is evidence that they are not purebred and have admixtures of other species.

Cape Lion (Panthera leo melanochaitus) is an extinct subspecies of lions. Cape lions lived on south coast African continent.

They were not the only subspecies of lions that lived in South Africa, and their exact distribution area has not yet been fully established.

The main habitat for lions was the Cape Province in the vicinity of Cape Town. The last Cape lion was killed in 1858.

It was typical for male Cape lions long mane, extending beyond the shoulders and covering the stomach, as well as the noticeable black tips of the ears.

The results of a DNA study of Cape lions revealed that this is not a separate subspecies, but most likely the Cape lion is only the southernmost population transvaal lion (Panthera leo krugeri).

Transvaal lion, also known as southeast african lion, a subspecies of lion that lives in southern Africa, including National Park Kruger. The name comes from the Transvaal region of South Africa.

Like all lions (with the exception of lions from National Park Tsavo), male Transvaal lions have a mane. Males most spend time guarding their territory, and lionesses take on the responsibilities of hunting and providing the pride with food.

Males reach a length of up to three meters (usually 2.5 cm), including the tail. Lionesses are smaller - about 2.5 meters. The weight of a male is usually 150-250 kg, females - 110-180 kg. The height at the withers reaches 90-125 cm.

This type of lion is characterized by leucism, lack of melanin, which is associated with mutation. The animal's fur becomes light gray, sometimes even almost white, and the skin underneath is pink (due to the absence of melanocytes).

Lions were also found in ancient Greece

A.A. Kazdym

List of used literature

Sokolov V. E. Rare and endangered animals. Mammals. M.: 1986. P. 336

Alekseeva L.I., Alekseev M.N. Triofauna of the Upper Pleistocene of Eastern Europe(large mammals)

Zedlag U. Animal world Earth. M., Mir. 1975.

Zoological journal. Volume 40, Issues 1-6, USSR Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov. Zoo museum

West M., Packer C. Sexual selection, temperature, and the lion’s mane. Washington DC. 2002

Barnett R., Yamaguchi N., I. Barnes, A. Cooper: Lost populations and preserving genetic diversity in the lion Panthera leo, Implications for its ex situ conservation. Kluwer, Dordrecht. 2006

Ronald M. Nowak Walker's Mammals of the World, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999

Barton M. Wildes Amerika Zeugen der Eiszeit. Egmont Verlag, 2003

Turner A. The big cats and their fossil relatives. Columbia University Press, 1997.

http://bigcats.ru/index.php?bcif=lions-ind.shtml

DID YOU LIKE THE MATERIAL? SUBSCRIBE TO OUR EMAIL NEWSLETTER:

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we will send you an email digest of the most interesting materials on our site.

Before humans climbed to the top of the food chain, wild cats were the most powerful and successful hunters. Even today, these huge predators evoke fear and at the same time admiration in a person who is not their competitor in the hunt. And yet, prehistoric cats were much better in all respects, especially when it comes to hunting. Today's article presents the 10 largest prehistoric felines.

The prehistoric cheetah belongs to the same genus as today's cheetahs. His appearance was very similar to the appearance of a modern cheetah, but its ancestor was many times larger. The giant cheetah was more reminiscent of a modern lion in size, because its weight sometimes reached 150 kilograms, so the cheetah easily hunted larger animals. According to some data, ancient cheetahs were capable of accelerating at speeds of up to 115 kilometers per hour. A wild cat lived on the territory modern Europe and Asia, but could not survive the Ice Age.




This dangerous animal does not exist today, but there was a time when xenosmylus, along with others predatory cats headed the planet's food chain. Outwardly he very much resembled saber tooth tiger, however, unlike it, xenosmilus had much shorter teeth, which were similar to the teeth of a shark or predatory dinosaur. The formidable predator hunted from ambush, after which it instantly killed the prey, tearing off pieces of meat from it. Xenosmilus was very large, sometimes its weight reached 230 kilograms. Little is known about the habitat of the beast. The only place where his remains were found was Florida.




Currently, jaguars are not particularly large in size; as a rule, their weight is only 55-100 kilograms. As it turned out, they were not always like this. In the distant past modern territory South and North America filled with giant jaguars. Unlike the modern jaguar, they had longer tails and limbs, and their size was several times larger. According to scientists, the animals lived on open plains together with lions and some other wild cats, and as a result of constant competition they were forced to change their place of residence to more wooded areas. The size of a giant jaguar was equal to a modern tiger.




If giant jaguars belonged to the same genus as modern ones, then European jaguars belonged to a completely different one. Unfortunately, today it is still not known what the European jaguar looked like, but some information about it is still known. For example, scientists claim that the weight of this cat was more than 200 kilograms, and its habitat was countries such as Germany, England, the Netherlands, France and Spain.




This lion is considered a subspecies of lion. Cave lions were incredibly large in size, and their weight reached 300 kilograms. Scary predators lived in Europe after ice age, where they were considered one of the most dangerous creatures planets. Some sources say that these animals were sacred animals, so they were worshiped by many peoples, and perhaps they were simply feared. Scientists have repeatedly found various figurines and drawings depicting a cave lion. It is known that cave lions did not have a mane.




One of the most terrible and dangerous representatives wild cats prehistoric times - this is homotherium. The predator lived in the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, South and North America. The animal adapted so well to the tundra climate that it could live for more than 5 million years. The appearance of Homotherium was noticeably different from the appearance of all wild cats. The forelimbs of this giant were much longer than the hind limbs, which made him look like a hyena. This structure suggests that Homotherium did not jump very well, especially in contrast to modern cats. Although Homotherium cannot be called the most, its weight reached a record 400 kilograms. This suggests that the beast was even larger modern tiger.




The appearance of a mahairod is similar to that of a tiger, but it is much larger, with more long tail and huge fang-knives. Whether he had the stripes characteristic of a tiger is still not known. The remains of the mahairod were found in Africa, which indicates its place of residence; in addition, archaeologists are convinced that this wild cat was one of the largest of those times. The weight of the mahairod reached half a ton, and in size it resembled a modern horse. The predator's diet consisted of rhinoceroses, elephants and other large herbivores. According to most scholars, the appearance of the mahairod is most accurately depicted in the film 10,000 BC.




Of all the prehistoric wild cats known to mankind, the American lion ranks second in popularity after Smilodon. Lions lived on the territory of modern Northern and South America, and became extinct about 11 thousand years ago at the very end of the Ice Age. Many scientists are convinced that this giant predator was relatives of today's lion. The weight of an American lion could reach 500 kilograms. There is a lot of controversy about its hunting, but most likely the animal hunted alone.




Most mysterious beast of the entire list was in second place among the largest cats. This tiger is not a separate species; most likely, it is a distant relative of the modern tiger. These giants lived in Asia, where they hunted very large herbivores. Everyone knows that today tigers are the largest representatives of the cat family, but such large tigers as in prehistoric times, today it’s not even close. The Pleistocene tiger was unusually large in size, and according to the remains found, it lived even in Russia.




The most famous representative of the cat family of prehistoric times. Smilodon had huge teeth that looked like sharp knives, and muscular body with short legs. His body slightly resembled that of a modern bear, although he did not have the clumsiness that a bear has. The amazingly built body of the predator allowed him to run with high speed even over long distances. Smilodon died out about 10 thousand years ago, which means they lived at the same time as humans, and perhaps even hunted them. Scientists believe that Smilodon attacked prey from an ambush.


Of all times. Previously, its status was not entirely clear, but today it is considered a clearly distinguishable subspecies of modern lions. It was first described by the German physician and naturalist Georg August Goldfus, who found the skull of a cave lion in the Franconian Alb.

In Soviet paleontology, on the initiative of Nikolai Vereshchagin, the cave lion was called tigrolev.

Encyclopedic YouTube

    1 / 4

    ✪ CAVE LION. Yaroslav Popov | Paleopark

    ✪ Cave bear (narrated by paleontologist Yaroslav Popov)

    ✪ Paleontological collection of Omsk Museum of Local Lore in the project Museums of Siberia. 038

    ✪ Living with gods: the 40,000-year-old Lion Man

    Subtitles

Spreading

In Europe, the first lions appeared about 700,000 years ago and belonged to the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis, the so-called Mosbach lion. The fact that it is sometimes also called the cave lion can be misleading. As a rule, the term cave lion refers to a later subspecies Panthera leo spelaea. Mosbach lions reached a length of up to 2.4 m excluding the tail and were half a meter larger than modern lions. They were the size of a liger. From this large subspecies came the cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago. It was distributed throughout northern Eurasia and even during the glaciations penetrated deep to the north. In the northeast of Eurasia, a separate subspecies has formed, the so-called East Siberian cave lion ( Panthera leo vereshchagini), which reached the American continent through the then existing land connection between Chukotka and Alaska. Spreading south, it evolved into the American lion ( Panthera leo atrox). The East Siberian cave lion became extinct at the end of the last major glaciation about 10 thousand years ago. The European cave lion probably became extinct during the same period, but it is possible that it persisted for some time on the Balkan Peninsula. Regarding the lions that existed on it until the beginning of our era, it is unknown whether they were cave lions.

Appearance

The skeleton of an adult male cave lion, found in 1985 near Siegsdorf, Germany, had a height at the withers of 1.20 m and a length of 2.1 m excluding the tail. This corresponds to a very large modern lion. At the same time, the Siegsdorf lion was inferior to many of its relatives. Cave lions were on average 5-10% larger than modern lions, but did not reach the enormous size of Mosbach lions and American lions. Rock paintings from the Stone Age allow us to draw some conclusions about the coloring of the fur and mane of the cave lion. Particularly impressive images of lions were found in southern France in the Chauvet cave in the Ardèche department, as well as in the Vogelherdhöhle cave in the Swabian Alb. Ancient drawings of cave lions always show them without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not as impressive. Often this image shows the characteristic tuft on the tail of lions. The coloring of the fur, apparently, was one color.

Lifestyle

Relatives

Unlike the Mosbach lion, regarding the classification of which as Panthera leo fossilis There has always been unanimity among scientists; there has been a long debate about the cave lion, whether it is a lion, a tiger, or even whether it should be distinguished as a separate species. In 2004 ( P.l. vereshchagini) and American lion ( P.l. atrox). All modern subspecies of lions belong to the group Leo. Both groups separated about 600 thousand years ago. Some fossil specimens of the extinct American lion were larger than the Mosbach lion and were thus among the largest felines that ever existed. They were previously considered a separate species, called the giant jaguar. According to the latest research, the American lion, like the cave lion, was not a separate species, but a subspecies of lions (



What else to read