The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[BorneanTiger]

(08-08-2021, 10:15 AM)tigerluver Wrote: A full report on two frozen cave lion cubs is out:

The Preliminary Analysis of Cave Lion Cubs Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) from the Permafrost of Siberia

Most interesting part I found was the assertion of the pelage change with age.:
"The general tone of the colour of the fur coat of Sparta is greyish to light brown, whereas, in Boris, the fur is generally lighter, greyish yellowish. It is, therefore, possible that light colouration prevailed with age in cave lions and was adaptive for northern snow-covered landscapes."

*This image is copyright of its original author

The color in figure B is what they assert may be the adult pelage. Interestingly, no spots on the cubs as in modern lines. Sparta (figure e) also has what is almost a stripe down its back.

Perhaps BBC had the color right after.:

There is more information, as mentioned in newspapers:

Perfectly preserved, frozen cave lions found in Siberia with whiskers still intact: https://english.alarabiya.net/variety/20...ill-intact, https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-...0bHD_uy3fw

Tala Michel Issa, Al Arabiya English, published: 10 August, 2021: 06:26 PM GST, updated: 10 August, 2021: 06:33 PM GST

Tim Fitzsimons, reporter for NBC News; August 6, 2021, 9:53 PM +04 / Updated August 7, 2021, 12:06 AM +04

Frozen cave lion cub, nicknamed Sparta, found in the Siberian arctic. Image from Twitter:
https://twitter.com/CpgSthlm/status/1422869720341045250
   

A team of international scientists say they have identified a pair of extinct Ice Age lions that are among the best preserved specimens ever found. Of these, a perfectly preserved and frozen 28,000-year-old cave lion cub was found deep in the Siberian arctic, making it one of the world’s best-preserved ice age animals, an expert has said. The scientists believe that the cave lion cubs, dubbed Boris and Sparta, each briefly roamed the steppe of what is now eastern Russia thousands of years ago.

The female lion cub’s fur, teeth and skin are all intact, the CNN reported on Thursday.

Cave lions, or Panthera spelæa, once lived across much of Eurasia before going extinct around 10,000 years ago. These Ice Age big cats, though closely related, were larger than their African lion relatives that still exist today.

Sparta, an Ice Age cave lion believed to be 28,000 years old. Courtesy / Love Dal?n
   

The lion, nicknamed Sparta, was one of two baby cave lions found in the area. Both cave lions, extinct felines that used to roam mainly across the Northern Hemisphere, were found in 2017 and 2018 by mammoth tusk hunters in Russia’s Far East on the banks of the Semyuelyakh River.

The two cave lion cubs are believed to have been about a month or two old when they died — already the size of a full-grown house cat — but carbon dating showed that they were mummified, likely in mud, at roughly the same location thousands of years apart. The cubs were found around 15 meters apart so they were thought to be siblings, but a new study has found that the age difference between the two amounted to some 15,000 years. The second cub, nicknamed Boris, is known to be older and according to carbon dating, he was found to be around 43,448 years old.

Love Dalén measuring Sparta. Courtesy / Jacqueline Gill
   

In an email to NBC News, professor of evolutionary genetics at the Center for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden and author of a new study on the cubs, Love Dalén said that as far as he knows "there have been four such cubs found ever."

“Sparta is probably the best-preserved Ice Age animal ever found, and is more or less undamaged apart from the fur being a bit ruffled. She even had the whiskers preserved. Boris is a bit more damaged, but still pretty good,” Dalén told the CNN, and to people on Twitter.

They were around one to two months old before they perished, the study, published in Quaternary, found: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/4/3/24/htm

Scans conducted on the animal showed skull and skeleton damage as well as dislocation of the ribs. However, how the cubs died remains to be unknown. “Given their preservation, they must have been buried very quickly. So maybe they died in a mudslide, or fell into a crack in the permafrost. Permafrost forms large cracks due to seasonal thawing and freezing,” Dalén said.

According to the research, the general tone of the cubs’ fur coat was similar to that of the African lion cub, however both lions exhibited some differences in their coat color. Boris had “greyish yellowish” fur while Sparta’s fur was “greyish to light brown.” “It is, therefore, possible that light coloration prevailed with age in cave lions and was adaptive for northern snow-covered landscapes,” the study revealed.

Cave lions and early humans coexisted.

The Chauvet cave in France, whose discovery in 1994 upended the timeline of human artistic achievement, features one wall covered with images of cave lions, with different color patterns than African lions today. The researchers note that the French cave contains "half of all cave lions Palaeolithic paintings known to date."

Cave lions are believed to have had less pronounced manes, and the difference in colour patterns between the juveniles and adults gave the researchers insight into how the animal's fur pattern might have changed from youth to adulthood.

A replica of the Chauvet Cave Lion Panel, in Vallon Pont d'Arc, France, on April 16, 2015. BONY / Sipa via AP file
   

Selected paintings of adult cave lions from Chauvet cave, showing interesting colouration on their head fur. Pictures: P. Fosse, numbers labelled as in Clottes and Azéma. Credit: Clottes, J.; Azéma, M. Les félins de la grotte Chauvet; Seuil Publications: Paris, France, 2005; pp. 1–125: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27923872?fb...VZRmYpbfRg
   

"Prehistoric people either only depicted female cave lions, or the cave lion males lacked mane," Dalén said in the email. "This is something we still don’t know. I guess we need to find a frozen adult male cave lion to figure that out." "It is still unknown exactly how cave lions adapted to life in the harsh conditions of the high latitudes with their rapid season periodicity, strong winds, and cold and long winters with associated continuous nights," researchers wrote.

The paper says there are some clues, finding that the cubs' fur was similar but not identical to that of the African lion currently in existence. "Cave lion fur also has a long thick fur undercoat consisting of strombuliform æriferous fur hair. It covers the body of a cave lion cub evenly and most likely helped cave lion cubs adapt to the cold climate."

Researchers couldn't say how they died for sure, since many cubs die young from a variety of threats, but found that "death by predation of the cave lion cubs seems unlikely."

The scientists conclude that the large number of well-preserved cave lion cubs found in this region of Russia "suggests that this area during the Karginian interstadial (when the climate was becoming relatively warm and tree vegetation was spreading) was a favourable breeding site for cave lions. It also seems probable that this site, during this time period, had some characteristics that made it more likely to rapidly freeze and preserve animals. The site was attractive to cave lions for making dens, but it was probably also susceptible to them collapsing."

The locations of the cave lion cubs' finds: on the Uyandina River (indicated by a red triangle) and on the Semyuelyakh River (indicated by a red asterisk): https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/4/3/24/ht...BPg6mpZhes
   

Frozen mummy of the cave lion cub named "Uyan", Uyandina River, Yakutia: https://www.mdpi.com/2571-550X/4/3/24/ht...BPg6mpZhes
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