Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[GuateGojira]

Great news, some interesting quotes:

1. The cubs 'are complete with all their body parts: fur, ears, soft tissue and even whiskers'. They are, he claimed, unique in the world, the most complete remains of cave lions ever found.

2. 'I would not talk about cloning now. Our main task here is to decipher the genome and to work with it. I think that speculation about cloning is very premature.'

3. Comparing with the modern lion cubs, we think that these two were very small, maybe a week or two old. The eyes were not quite open, they have baby teeth and not all had appeared.

4. They definitely differed from the modern lions, and we think there should be something that allowed them to adapt to the climate.

5. We suppose that the cave lioness behaved like the modern lioness in pride. 'It seems like she gave birth to the cubs and hid them in cave or hole to protect from the hungry lion'.

6. Cave lions - Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss) - lived during Middle and Late Pleistocene times on the Eurasian continent, from the British Isles to Chukotka in the extreme east of Russia, and they also roamed Alaska and northwestern Canada.

Source: http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestu...rian-cold/


Interestingly, at difference than the modern lion, this young cubs did not have any spot in they fur, and the adult ones seems to have a reddish color, not the tawny yellow that the modern specimens. Hopefully these new specimens and they DNA would settle the issue of "species vs. subspecies". Reply