The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[Mwarcaar]

20th anniversary of the history of genetic research on cave lions: A short review 

Given the disputes on time of divergence between P. leo and P. spelea, which existed for a long time (Burger et al., 2004, Barnett et al., 2016, Stanton et al., 2020, Broggini et al., 2024) nuclear genome data made it possible to clarify this issue. To solve this problem, three independent methods were used simultaneously based on: (1) Pairwise Sequential Markovian Coalescent (PSMC) model, (2) assessment of divergence of nuclear genome sequences based on purine-pyrimidine DNA mutations, and (3) number of heterozygous alleles in modern lion genomes potentially derived from cave lions (about 15 %). The authors also used previously described generation parameters for five years, as well as mutation frequency of 4.5 × 10−9 per generation. All three methods indicated that the date of divergence for these two species was about 500 thousand years ago (de Manuel et al., 2020).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950475924000133

It seems that the divergence between cave lions and lions is around 500 thousand years old, as recent as that between African leopards and Asian leopards Reply