Panthera leo spelaea
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Panthera leo spelaea Temporal range: to Early Holocene, 1.3–0.011 Ma |
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| Skeleton in Vienna | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | Panthera |
| Species: | P. leo |
| Subspecies: | †P. l. spelaea |
| Trinomial name | |
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Panthera leo spelaea Goldfuss, 1810 |
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| The maximal range of cave lions - red indicates Panthera spelaea, blue Panthera atrox, and green Panthera leo leo/Panthera leo persica. | |
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Panthera leo spelaea or P. spelaea, commonly known as the European or Eurasian cave lion, is an extinct subspecies of lion. It is known from fossils and many examples of prehistoric art.
P. leo spelaea has been proposed as a separate species Panthera spelaea. One authority considered the cave lion to be more closely related to the tiger based on a comparison of skull shapes, which would have resulted in the formal name Panthera tigris spelaea. Past DNA studies indicated that among extant felids, the cave lion was most closely related to the modern lion and that it formed a single population with the Beringian cave lion, which has sometimes been considered a distinct form. Therefore, the cave lion ranged from Europe to Alaska over the Bering land bridge until the late Pleistocene. A recent DNA study indicates that it is a separate species which diverged from a common ancestor shared with the lion 1.9 million years ago
Analysis of skulls and mandibles of a lion that inhabited Yakutia (Russia), Alaska (United States), and the Yukon Territory (Canada) during the epoch suggested that it was a new subspecies different from the other prehistoric lions, Panthera leo vereshchagini, known as the East Siberian- or Beringian cave lion. It differed from Panthera leo spelaea by its larger size and from the American lion (Panthera leo atrox) by its smaller size and by skull proportions. However, recent genetic research, using ancient DNA from Beringian lions found no evidence for separating Panthera leo vereshchagini from the European cave lion; indeed, DNA signatures from lions from Europe and Alaska were indistinguishable, suggesting one large panmictic population.
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