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Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
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Freak Felids - A Discussion of History's Largest Felines
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 (10-31-2015, 04:32 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: The modern Asian lion and African lion are more closely related to each other than to the Cave lion. To close to call, but my guess is that the Asiatic lions and the North African lions are probably the closest that can get out of the Cave lions, in their respective parts. Europe for Barbary lions and, our latest, Siberia for Asia's lions. 
I was always wondering if the modern Asiatic lions did carry any Cave lion's leftover gene, but after Guate did point out that Panthera spelaea and Panthera leo did not interbreed in the wild, the possibility of interbreeding didn't seem to be stood anymore.
After this surprising discovery of the still fresh frozen mummies, that possibility could be triggered again. However, the modern Asiatic lion's gene pool has heavily suffered the inbreeding bottleneck, so it might be hard to find any leftover of the Cave lion's gene. 
On the first page, you will now find a table of contents. Let me know if you'd like any specific pages added.
(10-31-2015, 05:29 AM)GrizzlyClaws Wrote: I was always wondering if the modern Asiatic lions did carry any Cave lion's leftover gene, but after Guate did point out that Panthera spelaea and Panthera leo did not interbreed in the wild, the possibility of interbreeding didn't seem to be stood anymore.Indeed, the present Indian lions may not be the state of the art from a gene pool point of view, hunted till almost extinction, but the visual differences in comparison to supposedly left overs of the North African lions is what always intrigued me. Especially the North African lion's pale eyes, something that instantly signals any big cat observer of it's uniqueness. Visually, the Indian lion has even less in common with the ''Barbary'' lions than it has with the rest of the African subspecies.
Asiatic lions most certainly stemmed from most recent lion clad migration. P. spelaea is completely isolated from this species geographically.
Sotnikova does theorize that P. fossilis may have had a closer relationship to the modern P. leo. Most of today's subspecies have differentiated very recently, in part due to ourselves.
Consider that some modern humans do carry the gene of the Neanderthal, and do you think it is possible for the interbreeding between these two lion species on occasion?
Morphological analysis shows that cave lions Panthera spelaea and modern lions Panthera leo are part of the same clad, together with the leopard and the jaguar, but separated from tigers. They have common traits but also they own different and particular characteristics. It is too early to start making assumptions about the true appearance of those cave lion cubs, as we don't have the full view of they bodies, we don't know if they have sposts, stripes or whatever they coat looks like. We most have caution with the color too, as mummified animals tend to loose some of it, even when some reddish color was found in some fur of a large specimen in Chukotka, even more, we most see that it is classified as a full species of its own, not a subspecies of modern lion (Kirillova et al., 2015).
Genetic analysis showed that there it was no genetic cross between cave lions and modern lions at all, nor in the middle east and certainly not in Asia (Cave lions lived in the north of Asia, while Indian-Persian lions lived in the south until Afghanistan and the north of India). This is important, because it shows that in fact, these two species of "lions", cave and modern, do not shared the same area. Even humans and Neanderthals do crossed, but cave lions and modern lions don't. Even further, Barnett et al. (2009) showed that the cave lion Panthera spelaea did not interbreed with the American lion Panthera atrox at all, showing that at some point in the middle to late Pleistocene, these two "lion-like" groups were already different and probably constituted something beyond that simple subspecies. We most understand that the concept of Taxa in fact support a deep separation, in this case even if they were lion-like, there are no more "lions" in the stricto sensu, as the modern Panthera leo has no relation, in modern days, with the cave lion. The difference seems as deep as is between humans and chimpanzees. Finally, is a scientific fact that all the lions from Asia, the north of Africa (Barbary) and west of Africa are the same subspecies (Panthera leo leo) and obviously deeply related with those of East and Southern Africa, which constitute the other subspecies (Panthera leo melanochaita). This information has been in public domain, and is based in many studies. Even more, the last genetic study of Barnett and Yamaguchi (in 2014 I think), showed that Barbary and Indian lions are indistinguishable as constitute a single group. The classifications of animal "subspecies" based in how they look is a old practice from the past century and is completely unreliable. 
I hope so. For example, we would see the external appearance of those specimens, just to form a good idea about how they were, at least at cubs.
If they could extract mtDNA or nuclear DNA, I guess it will be better preserved than in bones. Presently, the taxonomy of cave "lions" is base more in the "heart" than in the evidence. USA-UK scientists prefer to classified them as "lions" per se, but Russians and other scientists from other areas classified them as a different species, closely related with the lion clade (lion-jaguar-leopard), based in multiple evidences. Just an interesting note. According with Dr Hunter (2015), it seems that the position of the tiger in the Panthera genus is on a review, together with the snow leopard.
Some more DNA may be of use. Not sure how much they'd get, as nuclear DNA is only in hair follicles and not the body of the hair. It should be also in the skin as well, just how undamaged?
mtDNA has already been studied on this species, nevertheless. Paleo-cladistics doesn't bother as much with nuclear DNA due to its more volatile nature and compared to mtDNA, it is so much less numerous thus much harder to find and extract, if it isn't damaged by the test of time. We do now have a lion in the fur, which is an upgrade from Kirillova's single hair bundle. @GuateGojira, what's the title of the Hunter document?
Is the new book of Dr Hunter "Wild Cats of the World" of 2015. By the way, I have the full chapter!!!!
 Every time I mention Dr Hunter in 2015, you may be safe to know that is this new book. Here is the page where he say that tiger and snow leopard are uncertain in the Panthera group. By the way, I am fully agree with the taxonomic issue, after all, I support the "two subspecies" scenario:  *This image is copyright of its original author
The 451 mm Cave lion skull from San River.
 *This image is copyright of its original author
A Cave lion lower canine; 87 mm in the total length and 25 mm in the width.
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
A partial Cave lion upper canine from Spain.
https://twitter.com/EdestiaurreInfo/status/652411907794706432
Acinonyx pardinensis
 *This image is copyright of its original author These were truly giant cheetahs. Look at the specimens estimated at over 100 kg. I see van Valkenberg formulas were used, but as these are small cats on a relative scale, they would be more prone to underestimation than overestimation due to allometry. How much is the difference between the in-flesh and bone skull length? Looking at 154 mm Italian mandible, I estimate a GSL of 231 mm. If I add 30 mm to convert to an in-flesh measurements and isometrically compare to modern wild cheetahs, we get (261 mm/227 mm)^3 * 62.4 = 95 kg. For the 24.4 mm lower M1 specimen, I translate a bone skull length of 24.4/21.3*231 = 264.6 mm, so an in-flesh length of 300 mm, and thus a mass of 144 kg! I'm not certain if added too much/too little to adjust for the in-flesh length, but regardless, truly "freak" cheetahs. As always, paper attached. |
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