The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[Ghari Sher]

(11-03-2018, 10:57 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(11-03-2018, 10:35 PM)Ghari Sher Wrote:

(11-03-2018, 08:44 PM)Siegfried Wrote: Apparently there are more cave lion cubs that have been found.                                                                                                                                                                                                 https://siberiantimes.com/science/casest...f-yakutia/

Oh yeah, Spartak. I posted another, more recent article on him a few posts up.
Makes that about 4 cave lion cubs, assuming Boris is one.

Was there  some fur found also from adult cave lion or american lion? I think, that I have seen some. It is interesting, if I remember right, that fur and fur of these cubs are all quite same as lions have today. Then again if all have same progenitor maybe not so surprising at all.

From the cave lion - yes.

Quote:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Fig. 2. Photomicrographs of the yellowish matted fur found alongside the remains of a skeleton of cave lion. (А) Small wads of fur with black guard hairs indicated by arrows; (B) the hair was highly heterogeneous: thick black guard hairs and thin and waved yellowish downy hairs are visible, and black guard hairs are indicated by arrows; (Box) guard hairs. Scale bars are 1 cm. Note: In the cave lion fur we found one dark hair (thickness up to 34mm) identified as a small rodent hair. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

https://pgl.soe.ucsc.edu/chernova16.pdf
Overall the pelage for this cat was denser than that of the African lion, and also probably lighter in colour (in contrast to @tigerluver's reconstruction, I dare say), since there are fewer dark guard hairs and more yellowish downy hairs, as described above by Kirilova (2016).
The associated skeleton belonged to a large male, mature, but not old. The belonging of the hair and skeleton to the same individual is under some question due to the younger radiocarbon age given by the hair, but this could be due to failure of the authors to clean out any contaminating sediment from the hair sample which might effect the age, as mentioned below:
http://www.ibss.febras.ru/Files/00014589.pdf

In regards to the pelage of the American lion - there is a patch of skin from Patagonia, but its attribution to Panthera atrox is doubtful, despite that new paper. A friend of mine who has done considerable reading into the megafauna of South America is confident that the fur is either from a cougar or a jaguar. Reply