Cave lion

Panthera spelaea, commonly known as the cave lion or in some scientific literature, the steppe lion, is an extinct species of Panthera that inhabited Eurasia and northwestern North America during the Pleistocene. Ancient DNA analyses indicate that, although closely related to the modern lion (Panthera leo), it was a genetically distinct species. Estimates place the divergence between the two lineages at approximately 500,000 to 1 million years ago.

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). It is closely related and probably ancestral to the American lion (Panthera atrox). 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 along with other large carnivores like cave hyenas, which cave lions came into conflict with.

It closely resembled living lions with a coat of yellowish-grey fur, though depictions in cave art have led to suggestions that males lacked substantial manes unlike those present in living male lions. Whether or not cave lions lived in social groups like living lions is uncertain, but they are often suggested to have been largely solitary, similar to living tigers.

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.

Cave lions became extinct about 13,000 years ago as part of the end-Pleistocene extinction event, the precise cause of which is unknown, though climatic change, changes in prey abundance, and competition with other carnivores and humans have been suggested as possible causal factors.

From the Wikipedia article “Panthera spelaea” (en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Panthera_spelaea&oldid=1383367692), by Wikipedia contributors, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). This block is kept separate from our own text.