The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[tigerluver]

Panthera shawi

In this post, I'll go over the scant record of Panthera shawi, an old fossil "lion."

The species was first recorded in 1948 in the manuscript Some South African pliocene and pleistocene mammals.

Broom recorded a large canine from Bolt's farm near Sterkfontein, South Africa, which is dated to about 2.9 mya-4.5 mya.

*This image is copyright of its original author

In 1956, Ewar found some more specimens presumed to be of the same species in Kromdraai (around 2 mya old) and Swartkrans (also 2 mya old). Both these sites are also in South Africa. Ewar believed that the Swartkrans specimen was too small to be P. shawi, but that theory I do not agree with due to variation between genders and individuals.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

In the 1980s, Turner (1986 and 1987) logged 3 more specimens as plain lions from Sterkfontein Member 4 (2.6-2.0 mya old). In all likelihood, these were P. shawi and not P. leo. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

P. shawi was very large. Starting with the strongest predictor of size, the distal humerus that measures 111.9 mm in length exceeds the corresponding measurement of the largest P. atrox humerus that measured 
409 mm and and just exceeds the width of a very robust 396 mm P. atrox humerus as well. 

Moving on to the dentition, the Broom canine's width is similar to the canines found in 400 mm-420 mm P. atrox skulls. The Ewar Kromdraai ca. 40 mm sup. P4 (Ewar mentioned that the full tooth could have been a smidge larger than 40 mm) is quite large, but the skull could've ranged from only 410 mm in length to 470 mm in length based on a collection of P. atrox and P. spelaea data (this refers back to the weakness of dentition when estimating body size). The other Ewar Kromdraai sup. P3 and inf. P3 would give the same skull size ranges. The 30 mm M1 could have been of a specimen with a skull around 390-440 mm. The Ewar Startkrans dentition are from skulls well below 400 mm in all likelihood. The Turner teeth are of specimens even smaller. 

The above analysis indeed shows a big cat, likely on average the size of a very large lion or tiger, indicating the maximum would have been quite, quite large. Reply