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Pleistocene Big Cats
The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)
The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)
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The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)
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I think that this work could be interesting. If anyone have this, please write me on PM.
The largest European lion Panthera leo spelaea (Goldfuss 1810) population from the Zoolithen Cave, Germany: specialised cave bear predators of Europe Diedrich, 2011 Abstract: "Remains of 13 individuals with 3/1 male/female ratio of the extinct Upper Pleistocene lion Panthera leo spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) from the Zoolithen Cave near Burggeilenreuth (Bavaria, Germany) include the holotype skull and all paratype material. The highest mortality rate for the Zoolithen Cave lions is in their reproductive adult ages. Bite marks on lion bones or skulls are results of hyena activities, or rare cannibalism of lions under stress situations. Lions were possibly also killed in battles with cave bears during predation on hibernating bears in winter times. This cave bear hunt specialisation in caves overlaps with the ecological behaviour of cave bear feeding by Ice Age-spotted hyenas. Both largest Ice Age predators, lions and hyenas, had to specialise on feeding herbivorous cave bears in boreal forest mountainous cave rich regions, where the mammoth steppe megafauna prey was absent. This cave bear hunt by felids, and scavenging by hyenas and other large carnivores such as leopards and wolves explains why cave bears hibernated deep in to the European caves, for protection reasons against predators. Within such lion–cave bear and even lion–hyena conflicts in the caves lions must have been killed sometimes, explaining mainly the skeleton occurrences in different European caves." 
Functional morphology and fur patterns in Recent and fossil Panthera species
Above I have linked a very interesting paper on manes and cave lions.  (11-01-2016, 01:03 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: A new "American lion" skeleton discovered in Alaska that dated back to the late Pleistocene, but I guess this should be de facto a Beringian Cave lion. @GrizzlyClaws Not long ago I asked Mr Alan Stout about the size of Panthera atrox skeleton he owns, attached is the information I received from him. Mr. Alan Stout, Congratulations for your great page and incredible fossils that you offer, Mr Alan Stout I love African Lions and Prehistoric Lions too. I was looking for information of size of Panthera Atrox skeletons and was very lucky to find your page and pictures of your super Skeleton: I will really appreciate if you can send information of your great Skeleton of Panthera Atrox. The information is: 1) Head and body length excluding the tail. 2) Height at the shoulders. 3) Size of the Skull. 4) Estimated weight of the Skeleton you mounted. 5) Sex of the specimen your mounted skeleton. I will be waiting for your valuable information. Thank You Very Much Regards, Edouard Paiva  *This image is copyright of its original author [email protected] 10/19/16  *This image is copyright of its original author *This image is copyright of its original author *This image is copyright of its original author to me *This image is copyright of its original author It was taken diown so I don't have all but I can tell you some 1 Head 17 inches 2, Head thru pelvic area est 8 foot 3. Its a female 4. Weight about 60 lbs 
@epaiva
So a female Panthera atrox specimen got a 17 inches skull? If this is the true, then the largest recorded 18.4 inches skull might not represent the maximum potential for this species. (03-27-2017, 08:51 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: @epaiva @GrizzlyClaws I am sure he did not measure the skull very well (03-28-2017, 06:01 AM)epaiva Wrote: @GrizzlyClaws Do you know the correct measurement? (09-10-2016, 12:42 AM)tigerluver Wrote:@tigerluver Thanks a lot for your valuable information
@tigerluver
Glad to see that you are finally back, and need your analysis for the newly discovered Cave lion specimens. They don't belong to the same specimen, the 15 cm upper canine is from China, while the 31 cm mandible with 13 cm lower canine is from Russia, but I assume these two specimens are probably about the same size.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Generally the skull's greatest length is 1.5x that of the mandible's length. So a 310 mm mandible could have a skull of 465 mm. Often, excessive mandibles don't have a cranium that is 1.5x longer but even then, the skull of this mandible must've been comfortably around 430 mm. The Chinese canine probably had a skull a bit smaller then.
It's interesting to see that the cave lion being both relatively recent and still approaching and may matching the size of P. fossilis. This could explain why the tiger fossils that were found to overlap with cave lion were comparatively small. Those tigers assumed the niche of the smaller cat. (08-31-2017, 04:54 AM)tigerluver Wrote: Generally the skull's greatest length is 1.5x that of the mandible's length. So a 310 mm mandible could have a skull of 465 mm. Often, excessive mandibles don't have a cranium that is 1.5x longer but even then, the skull of this mandible must've been comfortably around 430 mm. The Chinese canine probably had a skull a bit smaller then. The upper canine teeth of the 38 cm Beringian Cave lion skull is only 12 cm. So 38 * 1.25 = 47.5 cm The Chinese canine is 25% larger, then it must have came from a much larger specimen if we make a comparison between two conspecific specimens. The lower canine of the Russian mandible is 13 cm, and it does look match the size with the 15 cm Chinese upper canine. BTW, the Amur tiger used to capture the niche position in the ecosystems as a smaller cat in the late Pleistocene era, but after the extinction of the Cave lion, the Amur tiger got no more nemesis that kept dominating them in the ecosystems, and they probably managed to seize in a higher position in the ecosystems in a brief period after the Pleistocene era until the rise of the human. I do suspect that the period between the extinction of the Cave lion and the full rise of the human civilization was the true golden age for the Amur tiger. This period probably lasted about a couple of thousands years, where the Amur tiger monopolized the entire ecosystems in the northeastern part of Asia as the sole dominant big cat. This dominance probably ended after the rise of the more advanced human civilization which affected them more than those earlier humans from the tribal society. Just look how the construction of the Great Wall alone in the 220 BC had already isolated their gene exchange with other tiger groups.
Canines and dentition as a whole vary a lot in their proportion with the skull, so direct scaling is usually inaccurate.
I agree that Amur tiger may have taken up the larger cat niche once the cave lion went extinct. Perhaps the Ngandong tiger is evidence of that. As the tiger moved south, escaping the cave lion lineage, it found the space to get huge rapidly. I may be wrong, but the tiger seems to be one of most flexible cats in terms of size. Just look at the modern subspecies and the prehistoric chronospecies. The other cats have intraspecific size variation but usually the max of the smallest subspecies is not a third of the largest, unlike tigers. I feel the size discrepancy and genetic predisposition to shrinking when pressures apply saved the tiger while the cave lion and other megafauna cats could not maintain their massive sizes during the extinction periods that finally ended the iconic species.
The family of the maneless form of lion had started their legacy as the giant pantherine long time ago, much earlier than other big cats.
The predecessor of the Cave lion was already the giant pantherine, so the Cave lion was merely like 'a rich born in a noble family', unlike the Amur tiger who was 'a new rich born in a poor family'. With the extinction of the Cave lion, it might provide more room for the Amur tiger to enjoy their privilege as the giant pantherine for a while like their close relative the mighty Ngandong tiger. The Amur tiger was also flexible in the size shift, maybe the full rise of the advanced human civilization had forced them to change back into normal sized. Also a swan song for the legacy of the giant pantherines since the giant maneless lions and the Ngandong tiger, it rightfully ended with the recession of the Amur tiger.
@tigerluver so we can reach the consensus that the family of the maneless form of lion was always the main theatre in the history for the giant felid, while the supersize of the Ngandong tiger, Smilodon populator, and other giant sabertooth species were just several isolated sideshows. And the swan song in the history of the giant felid was the hypothetical supersize of the Amur tiger in a brief period after the extinction of the Cave lion.
Although the Amur tiger may not even be the largest cat in the modern time, but they are likely a surviving member who once joined the club of the giant felid. On the other hand, the modern maned lions and the Bengal tigers are superior to the Amur tiger in the modern time, but they never imitated the supersize evolutionary pattern of the prehistoric giant felid species, unlike the Amur tiger in the past. I am also suspecting that the giant Manchurian tigers aforementioned by @peter could be the leftover population of those supersized giant Amur tigers that displaced the Cave lions right after the Pleistocene era.
That was really well put @GrizzlyClaws . Now we already seem to have a sense as to why Smilodon populator and P. t. soloensis got so big (when they moved in they had become the biggest feline, unlike their relatives in the north (S. fatalis to P. atrox and P. t. acutidens to P. spelaea). That leaves the question as to why was the lion lineage so large early. Remember the P. shawi humerus? That was as bigger, if not bigger, than the largest P. atrox we have on record. Add to that, the sample size of P. shawi pales in comparison to that of P. atrox, so probability says P. shawi may have been gigantic. What exactly happened between the migration of the lion lineage all the across Asia into Africa that triggered the gigantism that would stay in the lineage for over two million years?
What we need is to find the missing links across the huge migration route of the lion lineage. We know that the lions that are popular today all can be traced back to Africa. Did the lineage experience gigantism then? Or perhaps, the size started increase on the way to Africa while still in Asia. Many scenarios, yet not really any fossils to refer to unfortunately.
Maybe Panthera shawi lived in an era when Africa did contribute the gigantism to the pantherines, but since then this pattern had shifted to the northern part of Eurasia and the North America with the maneless form of lion already being migrated over there.
The modern lions belongs to the lineage that confined in Africa and the southern part of Eurasia, so they probably never followed this evolutionary pattern. |
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