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First Lions in Africa
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My question is: Did lions share the environment with the primitive bear, Agriotherium africanum?
I just read (wikipedia) that the Agriotherium africanum has been living from 13,6 to 2,5 millions years ago, ie. for 12 millions years during the Miocene ? Thus I don't think he shared his environment with african lions... Perhaps with the first forms of panthera leo fossilis... But I seriously doubt if the agriotherium africanum didn't live in Africa during the pleistocene .
I think the African species of Agriotherium was likely extinct prior to the emergence of the earliest lion.
According to the newest research, the Cave lions were likely descended from these earliest African lions that dated more than 2 million years ago, but I don't think they have ever met the Agriotherium. 
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.
In my previous post (#2) I have mistaken the Miocene with the Pliocene. Agriotherium africanum is a Pliocene specie and the lions, spalea then modern, appeared after during the Pleistocene.
(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. 
@GrizzlyClaws Yes, you are correct. You and @BorneanTiger are my favorite posters.
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