Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[Black Lorren]

(10-31-2015, 05:29 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: I was always wondering if the modern Asiatic lions did carry any Cave lion's leftover gene, but after Guate did point out that Panthera spelaea and Panthera leo did not interbreed in the wild, the possibility of interbreeding didn't seem to be stood anymore.

After this surprising discovery of the still fresh frozen mummies, that possibility could be triggered again.

However, the modern Asiatic lion's gene pool has heavily suffered the inbreeding bottleneck, so it might be hard to find any leftover of the Cave lion's gene.

Indeed, the present Indian lions may not be the state of the art from a gene pool point of view, hunted till almost extinction, but the visual differences in comparison to supposedly left overs of the North African lions is what always intrigued me.
Especially the North African lion's pale eyes, something that instantly signals any big cat observer of it's uniqueness.

Visually, the Indian lion has even less in common with the ''Barbary'' lions than it has with the rest of the African subspecies. Reply