The Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea and Panthera fossilis)

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(11-15-2017, 09:33 PM)tigerluver Wrote: @GrizzlyClaws , with an estimated basal length of 380 mm (from the text, the scale on the image seems to be quite off), this would be a very large cat. The box and whisker plot sums up this lion's position well as compared even if all the giants we know of on record were not used. CBL is usually 20-30 mm more than basal length thus the CBL of this skull would be around 405 mm. The GSL would be around 450 mm. That's a smidge less than that largest skulls of P. atrox most are aware of (458 mm) and a bit smaller than the giant Mokhnevskaya P. fossilis skull (475 mm) and University of California giant P. atrox skull (467.5 mm).

If we say a 200 kg lion with skull of CBL of 340 mm, by isometry this lion would have weighed 340 kg. I've inflated the skull size to weight ratio of the isometric comparison as these lions were probably more robust than their modern counterparts, thus a smaller CBL base should be attached the the 200 kg weight.

This skull goes back to the point that the lion's huge size is African in origin, not Eurasian. We have the giant P. shawi from south Africa that I've mentioned earlier and in the main posts. This Natodomeri specimen shows that the giant size potential was still there a million years later. Probability also hints that if a single skull found such a big specimen, there must've been larger specimens. Maybe this wasn't the case, but we have some reason to believe the African lions of the late Pleistocene outsize the cave lions up north. As always, more specimens will give us a better look.

Either this weekend or the upcoming thanksgiving, I'll try to get some ratios on this skull and see which species it sits most closely with.

Did the African Lions of the Pleistocene also lack manes or were they fully evolved by then (with the mane)? Reply