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09-12-2016, 07:32 AM( This post was last modified: 09-12-2016, 07:41 AM by tigerluver )
The P. atrox point is probably right according to Sotnikova and Foronova (2014) paper.
For the questions, I think we need to remember that the two P. spelaea specimens/subspecies tested by Barnett et al. (2016) have their most recent common ancestor split only 500 kya. It is the cave lion "stem" group that split 1.89 mya, which is not genetically identical to the most recent form of P. spelaea as the phylogenetic tree shows. This keeps open the possbility of the following evolution:
Cave lion stem group (1.89 mya) -> P. (spelaea?) fossilis (1 mya) -> P. spelaea spelaea 500 kya
So there must be a stem group somewhere out there in the connection between Africa and Eurasia that dates to about 2 mya.