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+---- Thread: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean (/topic-new-dwarf-lion-species-discovered-on-the-island-of-crete-in-the-mediterranean)
New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - sanjay - 04-01-2015
On April 1, An amazing discovery happened, When group of scientist found a dwarf lion species occurred on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean about 140,000 years ago. Dr Spiros Prota-Aprilios of the Natural Historical Museum of Crete had this to say:
Quote:We are very excited by this discovery. That dwarf elephants occurred on Crete is already well known, and now we have discovered this well-preserved skeleton in the Asteio caves on the south of the island. A small earthquake last week opened up some new chambers we had not been able to access before.
Dwarfism among animals living on islands is a well-described phenomenon. I have already mentioned the Cretan dwarf elephant, but other examples are pygmy elephants on Borneo, the dwarf Maltese hippopotamus, the California Channel Island mammoth, the Zanzibar leopard and even some very small extinct humans on the Island of Flores in Indonesia. Some islands in the Caribbean even have dwarf flies and mosquitoes. Evolutionary biologists say that smaller animals need fewer resources, and that may explain this type of dwarfism.
We believe that the lion skeleton is about 140,000 years old. As you know, lions left Africa long before Homo sapiens made the journey, and wherever early humans went – Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, India – they found that lions were already there.
The lion would have been the size of a Labrador dog and probably weighed about 60kg. The skeleton is of a male, and we are hoping to find remains of females – they would have likely been smaller. We are not able to determine if the male Cretan lion had a mane.
Dr Prota-Aprilios laughed when asked if the Cretan lions would have lived in prides. "If so, the prides would have been small", he said.
Image of dwarf lion species skeleton found at island of Crete in the Mediterranean
*This image is copyright of its original author
Credit to Pieter Kat for this information.
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - Richardrli - 04-01-2015
I'm not totally convinced that it was a "lion"
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - sanjay - 04-01-2015
@Richardrli , Would love to hear your reason for disapproving it ?
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - GuateGojira - 04-01-2015
Fascinating, a lion of 60 kg. I think is pretty logic that if there are dwarf mammals in those same islands, there could be dwarf lions too.
However, we most be careful, as this great cat could be also a leopard, a jaguar or a dwarf member of Panthera fossilis (all these species lived in Europe). It came to my mind the case of the Sri Lanka "lions", which are said to be lions, based only in the form of the tooth. [img]images/smilies/dodgy.gif[/img]
There is any document tied to this news? I would like the read something more.
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - sanjay - 04-01-2015
Well This document is new, I searched and found document related to Dwarf Elephants at island of Crete in the Mediterranean
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/133456/1/133456_Vol.1.pdf
I have asked Pieter Kat about any link for Dwarf lion article, Lets see
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - GrizzlyClaws - 04-01-2015
Probably another cat that belonged to the lion clade, and it could also be a dwarf subspecies of Panthera spelaea.
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - tigerluver - 04-01-2015
It's a cat for sure. Limb proportions match that of cats.
Camera angle is an issue here. From what I see, the mandible is a bit tall (perpendicular to length of body) and the top and bottom outlines are very parallel. P. atrox, P. fossilis, and P. spelaea had these traits. Jaguars also have similar traits. It is probably not modern lion just based on the mandible characterstics.
The top of the skull is a bit odd in terms of the curvature, but I've something similar in one P. spalaea in a small specimen published by Diedrich found is the Czech Republic. The concavity of the top half also removes the possibility of it being a leopard. P. gombaszoegensis was supposed to be long gone by the prescribed date as well.
I'm assuming the gender was determined based on the lower section of the torso. I can't do much on that with this picture, so we'll have to take the researcher's word.
I'm lead to believe this was a P. spelaea subspecies, possibly even a new species that branched of that lineage. Mediterranean island species were extremely small compared to the mainland source population, so cave lions would logically undergo the same dwarfism. Dwarfism is rather quick to achieve so such a form is easy to imagine evolutionarily. Look at Sunderban tiger populations and the Sunda populations. Some leopard subspecies are also extremely small.
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - Pckts - 04-02-2015
Ill be interested to see what more is discovered about this cat.
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - GuateGojira - 06-01-2015
I was checking old posts and I returned to this one.
Interesting, no new information, no even a document of news article about it is available. Just a copy-paste in Facebook and some people there even think that this was a joke from April 1.
There is anyone which could have data about this discovery, or was in fact, a joke?
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - GuateGojira - 08-20-2015
Well, I investigated this report since many months and there is not a single evidence that is real.
Conclusion, this was just a joke from April's fool day. There are not dwarf lions in Crete.
We can forget this issue for good. :neutral-fill:
RE: New dwarf lion species discovered on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean - Ngala - 07-02-2016
About the photo, the specimen is an Ursus spelaeus, found in the Bear's Cave from Apuseni Mountains, Romania. The complete skeleton was left in situ.