The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[Smilodon-Rex]

(11-06-2018, 01:13 AM)Spalea Wrote: @peter :

About #241: I find your posts exciting (perhaps not the word I would use at first sight, but from the dictionnary it seems to be the good one). I find fascinating to take a space into 4 dimensions (the Earth through the time), to consider which species could be competing at a given time or at least which species could share a given environment at a particular time as you do with, for exemple, the Pleistocene lions with the Amur tigers. To also notice that cave lions could be a ferocious ennemy of the cave bear, or same thing with the American lion towards the grizzly and the short-faced bear. Without forgeting the Pleistocene hyenas and wolves with the lions and tigers. The multiple combinations allow to imagine all kinds of encounter. Really fascinating !

To notice that at a given time the bears were the perfect the top predators (arctodus simus), and after in North America, the grizzly bears after having spent a long difficult period (the Pleistocene) became the top predator of the North America whereas the bears in Siberia are still confronted to the tigers, and so on...

Now, in our present time, numerous animal species have disappeared as well as some (sometimes intense) rivalries. Candidly I am asking to myself if something of the spirit of these ancient rivalries have subsisted till the present days. I remember having read in some of your previous posts how ferocious and intense could be the animosity between the tigers and the bears within some zoos. Much more ferocious, I had this impression, than between the lions and tigers for exemple.

Here it is ! I'm enjoying your posts.

The American lion's major competitors were Smilodon(including Smilodon fatalis and Smilodon populator), dire wolf(Canis dirus) and short-faced bear(Arctodus), grizzly bear(Ursus arctos horribilis), while the Cave lion's major competitors were cave hyena(Crocuta crocta spelaea），Homotheruim, cave bear(Ursus spelaeus) and Eurasian brown bear（Ursus arctos）etc.

Although American lion may not owning the dominant population's number like Eurasian cave lion, it still owning the dominant power in the territory, as a matter of fact,  Eurasian cave lion must facing too many competitors and was pressed by hyena groups as usual in late Pleistocene ecosystem, why? because cave lion was not the high-socialized animal like modern lion, that's why when cave lion meeting hyena groups would easily fall into disadvantage. How about the American lion? well the American lion may owned more advantages when facing the competitors, although American lion's population was far less than Smilodon fatalis and dire wolf, however it also means that American lion could more easily avoid the conflict between Smilodon and dire wolf, besides, American lion was larger，based on the supersize, it could more easily to reach the higher class of food chain, as a matter of fact, Smilodon and dire wolf were at the equal class of ecosystem in Ice Age North America,  but the American lion was at the higher class and as the dominant predator, it could strongly pressed dire wolf and Smilodon.
 
The research shows that American lions didn't need to bite bones frequently, as a contrary, Smilodons and dire-wolves had to bite bones frequently because the sharp similar fighting for food.

Just imagine that if these large carnvoires bring back to life in modern earth, we can see what would happen when these powerful beasts face off, how interesting !!!! they will try to become the new kings after nearly 10000 leaving like dinosaurs in Jurassic world !!! Reply