Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines

[tigerluver]

(07-04-2016, 09:05 PM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote:

(07-04-2016, 04:40 AM)tigerluver Wrote: A. africanum was a Pliocene species, and as the others have said, likely missed coexisting with either cave lion or modern lion. It likely did coexist with the stem group of lions, although.

Coincidentally, Panthera spelaea genetically diverged from the modern lion roughly about the period as Homo erectus diverged from the modern human, so they should both belong to the migration wave dated back to 2 million years ago.

Do you think what reason has caused those different species of hominid and felid in Africa to migrate?

The only difference is that Panthera leo is likely the stem group for all lion-like cats in Africa, while some lions have evolved into several different species due some very long period of genetic isolation.

In comparison, Homo sapiens is not the stem group for the hominid, since this species is relatively young and only evolved around 0.2 million years ago.

Quoting from the other thread, sorry for the late reply.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't H. sapien diverge/evolve and replace(not sure which one occurred) in Africa and not Eurasia?

Regardless, for felid this image beautifully sums up what likely triggered migrations (from The Late Miocene Radiation of Modern Felidae: A Genetic Assessment... See attached).

*This image is copyright of its original author

Around the time the lions differentiated from the stem-group (readers, please see post #679 for further info), sea levels dropped severely and dropped in rapid cycles. One of the earlier sea level drops probably opened many land bridges connecting Africa and Eurasia and so species migrated. It seems populations of all living things work like atoms, diffuse naturally from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration.

The rapid sea level cycles may also support the theory of three waves (I think that was the number, does anyone remember the source?) of migration conducted by the lions. The first wave would be P. fossilis. Sea levels rose, blocked off the stem-group, and by the time the levels fell again P. fossilis had speciated. At this we could hypothesize that P. spelaea then landed on Eurasia. Finally P. leo made its way once the niche was cleared of the cave lions. Reply