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Panthera spelaea

Panthera spelaea
Temporal range: Middle-Late Pleistocene,
Skeleton in Natural History Museum, Vienna
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Pantherinae
Genus: Panthera
Species:
†P. spelaea
Binomial name
†Panthera spelaea
Goldfuss, 1810
Subspecies
  • Panthera spelaea vereshchagini (Baryshnikov & Boeskorov, 2001)
  • Panthera spelaea spelaea Goldfuss, 1810
Red indicates the maximal range of Panthera spelaea, blue Panthera atrox, and green Panthera leo.
Synonyms
  • Panthera leo spelaea M. Boule & L. De Villeneuve, 1927

Panthera spelaea, commonly known as the cave lion (or less commonly as the steppe lion), is an extinct Panthera species that was native to Eurasia and northwest North America during the Pleistocene epoch. Genetic analysis of ancient DNA has revealed that while closely related, it was a distinct species genetically isolated from the modern lion (Panthera leo),[1] with the genetic divergence between the two species estimated at around 500,000 years ago.[2] The earliest fossils of the P. spelaea lineage (either regarded as the separate species Panthera fossilis or the subspecies P. spelaea fossilis) in Eurasia date to around 700,000 years ago (with possible late Early Pleistocene records).[3] It is closely related and probably ancestral to the American lion (Panthera atrox).[2] The species ranged from Western Europe to eastern Beringia in North America, and was a prominent member of the mammoth steppe fauna, and an important apex predator across its range. It became extinct about 13,000 years ago.[4] It closely resembled living lions with a coat of yellowish-grey fur though unlike extant lions, males appear to have lacked manes.

Panthera spelaea interacted with both Neanderthals and modern humans, who used their pelts and in the case of the latter, depicted them in artistic works.

  1. ^ Burger, J.; Rosendahl, W.; Loreille, O.; Hemmer, H.; Eriksson, T.; Götherström, A.; Hiller, J.; Collins, M. J.; Wess, T.; Alt, K. W. (2004). "Molecular phylogeny of the extinct cave lion Panthera leo spelaea". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 30 (3): 841–849. Bibcode:2004MolPE..30..841B. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2003.07.020. PMID 15012963.
  2. ^ a b Manuel, M. d.; Ross, B.; Sandoval-Velasco, M.; Yamaguchi, N.; Vieira, F. G.; Mendoza, M. L. Z.; Liu, S.; Martin, M. D.; Sinding, M.-H. S.; Mak, S. S. T.; Carøe, C.; Liu, S.; Guo, C.; Zheng, J.; Zazula, G.; Baryshnikov, G.; Eizirik, E.; Koepfli, K.-P.; Johnson, W. E.; Antunes, A.; Sicheritz-Ponten, T.; Gopalakrishnan, S.; Larson, G.; Yang, H.; O'Brien, S. J.; Hansen, A. J.; Zhang, G.; Marques-Bonet, T. & Gilbert, M. T. P. (2020). "The evolutionary history of extinct and living lions". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 117 (20): 10927–10934. Bibcode:2020PNAS..11710927D. doi:10.1073/pnas.1919423117. PMC 7245068. PMID 32366643.
  3. ^ Marciszak, Adrian; Schouwenburg, Charles; Gornig, Wiktoria; Lipecki, Grzegorz; Mackiewicz, Paweł (November 2019). "Morphometric comparison of Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) from Poland with the lion remains from Eurasia over the last 700 ka". Quaternary Science Reviews. 223: 105950. Bibcode:2019QSRv..22305950M. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.105950.
  4. ^ Stuart, A. J. & Lister, A. M. (2011). "Extinction chronology of the cave lion Panthera spelaea". Quaternary Science Reviews. 30 (17): 2329–2340. Bibcode:2011QSRv...30.2329S. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.04.023.

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