The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[Matias]

I want to congratulate you for the high level of information in this Post, based on scientific evidence, with very interesting conclusions and questions.


We always try to understand the concrete facts with concrete, objective analyzes using a practical, conclusive directive. I believe that, like the other Pleistocene mammals, the felines Panthera Spelaea, Panthera Fossilis and Panthera Atrox have met a higher growth pattern due to a diversity of concrete factors and others entirely unmeasurable that will have no practical means of proving themselves. Most of the answers on the whys? Of its bigger size, it is in the other mammals contemporary to all these felines. I believe that the body volume of a predator meets a mathematical principle that determines its adaptive success. In simplistic terms we have: speed to reach prey, force to shoot prey, need to become hegemonic, or better adapted in its environment to face other top predators and organic / environmental ability to better synthesize foods. The great card, so to speak, is to understand the evolutionary process by which all the mammals of that time passed and to frame the variants of the "Panthera" family in this context. Nature did great evolutionary experiments and in the Panthera branch it was no different.


I have a more global, procedural view, where determinisms are never fully determinant. Understanding the multiplicities of variants in measures of skulls, teeth, bone structure, body mass etc is an unpleasant task. The more we try to understand these organic processes through which these "archaic lions" have passed, the more we realize that we still lack countless paleontological discoveries that can finally elucidate such questions. Let's wait for the analytical results on the two puppies of Panthera Spelaea. Reply