The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

[tigerluver]

Correct on the Beringian lion, that's why I showed a double arrow to show synonymy. 

On P. shawi, the chronology and location of its record complicates things. All specimens attributed P. shawi can tentatively be considered chronological stages of the species, but one must remember that the P. shawi of Bolt's farm is around a million years older than the most recent P. shawi-attributed fossils. This leaves the possibility of the latter fossils being a unique species, although the lack of spatial movement in these specimens would reduce the possibility. Nonetheless, if we recognize 1 millions years of range grounds for speciation was already need a transitional form after P. shawi.

There is also the location to be acknowledged. P. shawi is South African. The cave lion lineages will have to be from a population that originated in the upper half of Africa. This could result in the cave lion parent population not being exactly P. shawi due to the distance and thus the lack of genetic interchange between populations.

We can dive into the issue with this scenario. If cats originated from east Asia, the first cats would have arrived and settled in North Africa. From there they would have moved south, and P. shawi may have been one of the feldis to evolve while the northern pantherine went on its own trajectory. A population of the northern pantherine would then enter Eurasia to became the cave lion. Thus in this scenario, P. shawi is actually never directly part of the cave lion lineage but rather a sister or aunt of sorts to the cave lion group. Reply