European Ice Age leopard
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Panthera pardus spelaea Temporal range: Late |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | Panthera |
| Species: | P. pardus |
| Subspecies: | †P. p. spelaea |
| Trinomial name | |
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Panthera pardus spelaea Bächler, 1936 |
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| Synonyms | |
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The European ice age leopard or Late Pleistocene ice age leopard (Panthera pardus spelaea) is an extinct subspecies of leopard which roamed Europe in the . It resembled the modern Persian leopard. The youngest fossils date to about 24,000 years ago, but it may have survived into the Holocene in southern and eastern Europe.
The Late Pleistocene Ice Age leopard was about the size of a modern Persian leopard (P. p. ciscaucasica). The skull was medium-long and its characteristics are closest to modern Persian leopards. The only known depiction of this leopard (from Chauvet Cave) shows a coat pattern similar to that of modern leopards. It is unclear if the spots were organised in larger rosettes like in modern Persian leopards. In contrast to modern leopards, the belly of the depicted animal is unspotted white. Fossils of small female leopards can sometimes be confused with large male lynxes. Leopards from the cold phases (glacials) of the Late Pleistocene are usually larger than those from the warm phases (interglacials). As in modern leopards, there was a strong sexual dimorphism, with males being larger than females.
The leopard first appeares in the fossil record of Europe in the Late Pliocene or Early Pleistocene. These leopards, attributed to the subspecies Panthera pardus begoueni, were replaced about 600,000 years Before Present by Panthera pardus sickenbergi, which lived until the Middle Pleistocene in Europe. Around 300,000 years ago another subspecies, Panthera pardus antiqua, replaced Panthera pardus sickenbergi. At the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, this subspecies gave rise to the Late Pleistocene ice age leopard (Panthera pardus spelaea). Another Pleistocene form from Europe, Panthera pardus vraonensis, is now regarded as a junior synonym of Panthera pardus spelaea.
Leopards were found in many parts of Europe during the Late Pleistocene. In the North, they reached the southernmost parts of Great Britain and Northern Germany (Baumann's Cave). The most complete skeleton of an Ice Age leopard is known from Vjetrenica Cave (south Bosnia and Herzegovina), where four leopard fossils have been found. These are dated to the end of the Late Pleistocene, about 29,000–37,000 BP. The latest records of the European Ice Age leopard, cave paintings in the Chauvet Cave in southern France, are dated to about 25,000–37,500 Before Present. The last leopards vanished from most parts of Europe about 24,000 years ago, just before the Last Glacial Maximum, because the youngest known fossil is 24,000 years old and was found in Croatia. In Germany the leopard survived at least into the early Weichselian.
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