The cave lion is an ancient predator. Cave lion Where and when did cave lions live
Spreading
In Europe, the first lions appeared about 700,000 years ago and belonged to the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis, the so-called Mosbach lion. That it is sometimes also referred to as the cave lion can be misleading. As a rule, the term cave lion refers to a later subspecies Panthera leo spelaea. Mosbach lions reached a length of up to 2.4 m, excluding the tail, and were half a meter larger than modern lions. They were the size of a liger, a hybrid of a lion and a tigress. From this large subspecies came the cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago. It was distributed throughout northern Eurasia and even during the ice ages penetrated deep into the north. In the northeast of Eurasia, a separate subspecies was formed, the so-called East Siberian cave lion ( Panthera leo vereshchagini), which reached the American continent through the then existing land connection between Chukotka and Alaska. Spreading south, it developed into the American lion ( panthera leo atrox). The East Siberian cave lion became extinct at the end of the last major glaciation about 10 thousand years ago. The European cave lion died out, probably in the same period, but it is possible that it survived for some time in the Balkan Peninsula. Regarding the lions that existed on it until the beginning of our era, it is not known whether they were cave lions.
Appearance
fossil skull
The skeleton of an adult male cave lion, found in 1985 near the German Siegsdorf, had a height at the withers of 1.20 m and a length of 2.1 m without tail. This corresponds to a very large modern lion. At the same time, the Siegsdorf lion was inferior to many of its relatives. Cave lions were on average 5-10% larger than modern lions, but did not reach the huge size of Mosbach lions and American lions. Rock paintings from the Stone Age allow us to draw some conclusions about the coloring of the coat and mane of the cave lion. Particularly impressive depictions of lions have been found in southern France in the Chauvet cave in the Ardèche department, as well as in the Vogelherdhöhle cave in the Swabian Alb. Ancient drawings of cave lions always show them without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not so impressive. Often these images show the tuft on the tail characteristic of lions. The coloring of the wool, apparently, was one-color.
Lifestyle
Cave lions on the hunt
Relatives
In contrast to the Mosbach lion, regarding the classification of which as Panthera leo fossilis unanimity has always reigned among scientists, there has been a long debate about the cave lion, whether it is a lion, a tiger, or even whether it should be singled out as a separate species. In 2004, German scientists were able to unambiguously identify it using DNA analysis as a subspecies of the lion. Thus ended the dispute that has existed since the first description of this animal in 1810. However, the Pleistocene lions of the north formed their own group, distinct from the lions of Africa and Southeast Asia. To this so-called group Spelaea included the Mosbach lion ( P.l. fossilis), cave lion ( P.l. spelaea), East Siberian lion ( P.l. vereshchagini) and the American lion ( P.l. atrox). All modern breeds of lions belong to the group Leo. Both groups separated about 600 thousand years ago. Individual fossil specimens of the extinct American lion were larger than the Mosbach lion and thus were the largest felids that ever existed. Previously, they were considered a separate species, called the giant jaguar. According to the latest research, the American lion, like the cave lion, was not a separate species, but a subspecies of lions ( panthera leo).
see also
Notes
Literature
- A. Turner: The big cats and their fossil relatives. Columbia University Press, 1997, ISBN 0-231-10229-1
- J Burger: Molecular phylogeny of the extinct cave lion Panthera leo spelea, 2003. Molecular phylogeny of cave lion.
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See what the "Cave Lion" is in other dictionaries:
CAVE LION- an extinct predatory mammal of the cat family. Lived in the 2nd floor. Pleistocene beginning of the Holocene, in Europe and North. Asia. The size of a large lion or tiger. He lived not in caves, but on the plains and in the foothills ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
CAVE LION- (Felts spelaea), an extinct predatory mammal of the family. feline. Known from the Pleistocene to the beginning of modern. epoch (Holocene) of Europe and North. Asia. Larger in size than a tiger and a lion, and in the structure of the skeleton had the features of both of them. Lived on the plains and in ... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary
cave lion- an extinct predatory mammal of the cat family. Lived in the 2nd half of the Pleistocene, beginning of the Holocene, in Europe and North Asia. The size of a large lion or tiger. He lived not in caves, but on the plains and in the foothills. * * * CAVE LION CAVE LION… … encyclopedic Dictionary
cave lion- (Felis spelaea) an extinct predatory mammal of the cat family. Lived in the second half of the Pleistocene and at the beginning of the Holocene in Europe and North Asia. It was the size of large modern lions or tigers, and in the structure of the skeleton, especially ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Physician and naturalist Georg August Goldfuss, who found the skull of a cave lion in the Franconian Alba.
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In Soviet paleontology, at the initiative of Nikolai Vereshchagin, the cave lion was called the tigrolev.
Spreading
In Europe, the first lions appeared about 700,000 years ago and belonged to the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis, the so-called Mosbach lion. That it is sometimes also referred to as the cave lion can be misleading. As a rule, the term cave lion refers to a later subspecies Panthera leo spelaea. Mosbach lions reached a length of up to 2.4 m without taking into account the tail and were half a meter larger than modern lions. They were the size of a liger. From this large subspecies came the cave lion, which appeared about 300,000 years ago. It was distributed throughout northern Eurasia and even during the glaciations penetrated deep into the north. In the northeast of Eurasia, a separate subspecies was formed, the so-called East Siberian cave lion ( ), which reached the American continent through the then existing land connection between Chukotka and Alaska. Spreading south, it developed into the American lion ( panthera leo atrox). The East Siberian cave lion became extinct at the end of the last major glaciation about 10 thousand years ago. The European cave lion died out, probably in the same period, but it is possible that it survived for some time in the Balkan Peninsula. Regarding the lions that existed on it until the beginning of our era, it is not known whether they were cave lions.
Appearance
The skeleton of an adult male cave lion, found in 1985 near the German Siegsdorf, had a height at the withers of 1.20 m and a length of 2.1 m without tail. This corresponds to a very large modern lion. At the same time, the Siegsdorf lion was inferior to many of its relatives. Cave lions were on average 5-10% larger than modern lions, but did not reach the huge size of Mosbach lions and American lions. Rock paintings from the Stone Age allow us to draw some conclusions about the coloring of the coat and mane of the cave lion. Particularly impressive depictions of lions have been found in southern France in the Chauvet cave in the Ardèche department, as well as in the Vogelherdhöhle cave in the Swabian Alb. Ancient drawings of cave lions always show them without a mane, which suggests that, unlike their African or Indian relatives, they either did not have one, or it was not so impressive. Often this image shows the tuft on the tail characteristic of lions. The coloring of the wool, apparently, was one-color.
In Yakutia, a well-preserved corpse of a lion cub at the age of several months was found, as well as two more, slightly worse preserved specimens.
Lifestyle
Relatives
In contrast to the Mosbach lion, regarding the classification of which as Panthera leo fossilis unanimity has always reigned among scientists, there has been a long debate about the cave lion, whether it is a lion, a tiger, or even whether it should be singled out as a separate species. In 2004, German scientists were able to unambiguously identify it using DNA analysis as a subspecies of the lion. Thus ended the dispute that has existed since the first description of this animal in 1810. However, the Pleistocene lions of the north formed their own group, distinct from the lions of Africa and Southeast Asia. To this so-called group Spelaea included the Mosbach lion ( P.l. fossilis), cave lion ( P.l. spelaea), East Siberian lion ( P.l. vereshchagini) and the American lion ( P.l. atrox). All modern subspecies of lions belong to the group Leo. Both groups separated about 600 thousand years ago. Individual fossil specimens of the extinct American lion were larger than the Mosbach lion and thus were among the largest felids that ever existed. Previously, they were considered a separate species, called the giant
Before man became a hunter and made his way to the top of the food chain, cats were the most successful and powerful predators. Even today, felines such as tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards are still admired and feared, but even they cannot outshine their extinct ancestors.
giant cheetah
The giant cheetah belongs to the same genus as modern cheetahs. And it looked similar, but was much larger. Weighing up to 150 kg, the cheetah was as big as an African lion and could hunt large prey. Some suggest that the giant cheetah could accelerate to 115 km / h! This beast lived in Europe and Asia during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Extinct during the last ice age.
Xenosmilus
Xenosmilus is a relative of Smilodon (the famous saber-toothed tiger), but instead of long, blade-like fangs, it had shorter teeth. They looked more like the teeth of a shark and a carnivorous dinosaur than the teeth of a modern cat. This creature hunted from an ambush and killed the victim, tearing out pieces of meat from it. Xenosmilus was quite large by today's standards - weighing up to 230 kg, and in size it looked like an adult lion or tiger. The remains of this cat were found in Florida.
giant jaguar
Today, jaguars are rather small animals compared to lions and tigers, usually weighing 60-100 kg. In prehistoric times, North and South America were home to giant jaguars. These cats had much longer limbs and tail than the modern jaguar. Scientists believe that jaguars lived on open plains, but due to rivalry with lions and other big cats, they were forced to find more wooded areas. Giant prehistoric jaguars were the size of a lion or tiger and very strong.
European jaguar
Unlike the giant jaguar mentioned, the European jaguar did not belong to the same species as modern jaguars. No one knows what this prehistoric cat looked like. Some scientists believe that most likely it looked like modern spotted felines, or maybe a cross between a lion and a jaguar. Obviously, this creature was a dangerous predator, weighed up to 210 kg and was at the top of the food chain 1.5 million years ago. His remains have been found in Germany, France, England, Spain and the Netherlands.
cave lion
The cave lion is a subspecies of a lion of very large size and weighing up to 300 kg. This is one of the most dangerous and powerful predators that lived during the last ice age in Europe. There is evidence that he was feared and possibly worshiped by prehistoric people. Many drawings and several figurines depicting a cave lion have been found. Interestingly, this lion was depicted without a mane.
Homotherium
Homotherium was one of the most dangerous felines in prehistoric times, lived in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. It has adapted well to environmental conditions, including the subarctic tundra, and lived for 5 million years before its extinction 10,000 years ago. Outwardly, Homotherium differed from other large cats. The forelimbs were somewhat longer than the hind limbs, resembling a hyena. The structure of the hind limbs of Homotherium indicates that it jumped worse than modern cats. Homotherium may not have been the largest predator, but some finds show that the mass of this cat reached 400 kg, which is more than the mass of the modern Siberian tiger.
Machairod
Unlike Smilodon, which was a classic saber-toothed tiger, its short tail had different body proportions from a real tiger. Machairods, on the other hand, looked like giant tigers with saber teeth, similar proportions and a long tail. Whether the beast had stripes is unknown. Found in Chad, Africa, machairod remains suggest that this creature was one of the largest cats of all time. It weighed up to 500 kg and was the size of a horse. He hunted elephants, rhinos and other herbivores. Machairod most likely looked like a giant tiger from a 10,000 BC movie.
american lion
After Smilodon, this is probably the most famous prehistoric cat. It lived in North and South America during the Pleistocene and became extinct 11,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. Most scientists argue that the American lion was a giant relative of the modern lion. Its weight was 470 kg. There is some debate about his hunting technique, but he most likely hunted alone.
Pleistocene tiger
This is the most mysterious beast on the list, known from fragmentary remains. This is not a separate species, but rather an early version of the modern tiger. Tigers evolved in Asia 2 million years ago to prey on a variety of huge herbivores that lived on the continent at the time. Tigers are the largest members of the cat family. However, during the Pleistocene period, there was more food, and therefore tigers were also larger. Some remains have been found in Russia, China and the island of Java.
Smilodon
The most famous cat, which had teeth similar to a dagger or a knife with a long straight blade, can be called Smilodon. He and his close relatives were distinguished by long serrated fangs and a short-legged muscular body resembling a bear. Strong physique did not allow them to run fast over long distances, so they most likely attacked from an ambush. Well, scimitar-toothed cats relied on speed, having long limbs, like those of cheetahs, as well as not so long and more roughly serrated fangs. Smilodons became extinct 10,000 years ago, which means they lived at the same time as humans and may have hunted them.
They are teetering on the brink of extinction due to destruction of ecological systems and loss of habitat. In the following paragraphs of the article, you will learn about 10 extinct species of tigers and lions that have disappeared from the face of the Earth over the past few thousand years.
Despite its name, the American cheetah had more in common with cougars than with modern cheetahs. Its slender, flexible body, like that of a cheetah, is most likely the result of convergent evolution (the tendency for dissimilar organisms to take on similar body shapes and behaviors when developed under similar conditions). In the case of Miracinonyx, the grassy plains of North America and Africa had almost identical conditions, which played a role in the emergence of outwardly similar animals. American cheetahs became extinct at the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, possibly due to human encroachment on their territory.
As with the American cheetah (see previous paragraph), the relationship of the American lion to modern lions is a matter of much debate. According to some reports, this predator of the Pleistocene era is more closely related to tigers and jaguars. The American lion coexisted and competed with other superpredators of the time, such as the saber-toothed tiger, the giant short-faced bear, and the dire wolf.
If the American lion was actually a subspecies of the lion, then it was the largest of its kind. Some alpha males reached a mass of up to 500 kg.
As you might guess from the name of the animal, the Bali tiger was native to the Indonesian island of Bali, where the last individuals died out only about 50 years ago. For thousands of years, the Bali tiger has been at odds with the indigenous human settlements in Indonesia. However, the neighborhood with local tribes did not pose a serious threat to these tigers until the arrival of the first European traders and mercenaries who ruthlessly hunted Bali tigers for sport and sometimes to protect their animals and homesteads.
One of the most formidable subspecies of the lion was the Barbary lion, a valuable property of medieval British lords who wanted to intimidate their peasants. Several large individuals made their way from North Africa to the Tower of London Zoo, where many British aristocrats were previously imprisoned and executed. The male Barbary lions had particularly thick manes, and reached a mass of about 500 kg, which made them one of the largest lions ever to live on Earth.
There is a high probability of reviving the Barbary subspecies of the lion in the wild by selecting its descendants scattered throughout the zoos of the world.
The Caspian lion has a precarious position in the classification of big cats. Some naturalists argue that these lions should not be classified as a separate subspecies, considering the Kaispi lion to be simply a geographical offshoot of the still extant Transvaal lion. In fact, it is very difficult to distinguish an individual subspecies from an isolated population. In any case, the last specimens of these representatives of big cats became extinct at the end of the 19th century.
6. Turan tiger, or Transcaucasian tiger, or Caspian tiger
Of all the big cats that have become extinct in the past 100 years, the Turanian tiger had the largest geographic distribution, from Iran to the vast, windswept steppes of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The greatest damage to this subspecies was caused by the Russian Empire, which bordered on the habitats of the Caspian tiger. Tsarist officials encouraged the destruction of the Turanian tigers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
As with the Barbary lion, the Caspian tiger can be reintroduced into the wild through selective breeding of its offspring.
Probably, the cave lion, along with the saber-toothed tiger, is one of the most famous extinct big cats. Oddly enough, cave lions did not live in caves. They got their name because many fossils of these lions have been found in the caves of Europe, visited by sick or dying individuals.
An interesting fact is that paleontologists attribute as many as three subspecies to the European lion: Panthera leo europaea, Panthera leo tartarica and Panthera leo fossilis. They are united by relatively large body sizes (some males weighed about 200 kg, females were slightly smaller) and susceptibility to encroachment and seizure of territories by representatives of early European civilization: for example, European lions often participated in gladiator fights in the arenas of ancient Rome.
The Javan tiger, like its close relative the Bali tiger (see point 3), was limited to one island in the Malay Archipelago. Despite relentless hunting, the main reason for the extinction of the Javan tiger was the loss of habitat due to the rapid growth of the human population in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The last Javan tiger was seen in the wild decades ago. Given the overpopulation of the island of Java, no one has high hopes for the restoration of this subspecies.
10. Smilodon (saber-toothed tiger)
From a scientific point of view, smilodon, it has nothing to do with modern tigers. However, given its overall popularity, the saber-toothed tiger deserves a mention in this list of extinct big cats. The saber-toothed tiger was one of the most dangerous predators of the Pleistocene era, able to sink its huge fangs into the necks of large mammals of those times.
And now a detailed article on these animals has arrived with preliminary results of the study of the find:
"The development of the Arctic zone of Russia in recent years brings a lot of discoveries of ancient frozen mummies of mammals of the Ice Age. Nevertheless, the discovery of two cubs of a cave lion in the territory of Yakutia in the summer of 2015 became a real sensation. Mummies of ancient lions of the Pleistocene period have never fallen into the hands of scientists before.
Thanks to finds in different parts of the Old World, it is known that ancient cats in Eurasia lived in a territory stretching from the New Siberian Islands to China and from Spain to Alaska.
At the end of the ice age, another name for which is the Pleistocene period, the ancient lion lived among the tundra steppes, along with animals such as mammoths, musk oxen and reindeer, and was the most powerful and dangerous predator. It belongs to the species Panthera spelaea(Goldfuss, 1810) of the cat family ( Felidae), order of predatory mammals ( Carnivora), which became extinct at the end of the Ice Age. The morphology of the cave lion simultaneously combines the features of a lion and a tiger. Disputes about which of the big cats this beast is closer to are still ongoing. But it is important to note that he was not the ancestor of either modern lions or tigers.
The Russian names for these extinct animals are the cave lion, the Pleistocene lion, the tiger lion. The latter was given by the Russian paleontologist N. K. Vereshchagin, who was one of the first to note the transitional exterior of the ancient lion - an intermediate appearance between the modern lion and tiger. scientific name Panthera spelaea the predator got it because for the first time its bones were found in caves (from lat. spelaea- caves) of Europe at the beginning of the century, and so far only one whole skeleton of this animal is known
an extinct species found in Bavaria.
Judging by the drawings of the Paleolithic era and the morphology of its bones, the cave lion was similar in appearance to the females of modern African and Asian lions and partly to modern Far Eastern tigers. The cave lion is characterized by a relatively larger head than that of modern lions and tigers. This confirms the ratio of the size of the skull of an ancient animal with the size of other bones of its skeleton. In addition, the skull of the ancient lion was relatively longer and narrower than that of lions and tigers, and therefore its muzzle is narrower and longer.
The most realistic depiction of cave lions in Chauvet Cave,
France, province of Ardeche. The age of the drawings is more than 30 thousand years.
According to the images of the cave lion made by the first artists, the ancient predator was of a dense build with developed subcutaneous fat on the abdomen, which hung down, like in the Amur tigers. Another feature of cave lions is the relatively large length of their limbs. From images from caves in Europe, it is also known that there were faint spots on the sides of the body, but the general color of the coat was uniform, the tail was shorter than that of a modern lion, and without a spherical tassel at the end. Ancient artists never depicted cave lions with a mane, and only occasionally emphasized the presence of short hair and even “suspension” under the lower jaw. Features of hair growth on the head of the Pleistocene lion resemble those of the Far Eastern tiger. He had small rounded ears and sideburns, which ancient artists emphasized.
In terms of size, the cave lion, on average, surpassed modern lions and tigers. At the same time, the Pleistocene lions of different populations differed from each other. In Europe, they were no larger than modern African lions and apparently weighed no more than 200-250 kg. Among the cave lions of Siberia and the Urals, sometimes there were giants with a skull length of more than 40 cm. The weight of such lions was at least 350 kg, and the height at the withers was about 140-150 cm. The length of the upper fangs of an ancient animal (together with the root) reached 14 cm - such predators could prey on any animals of that era.
Lions - close and distant relatives
In North America, cave lions lived in what is now Alaska and western Canada. In the more southern regions of this continent, another species of lions lived - Panthera atrox(Leidy, 1810), whose name in Latin means "terrible lion". There are no pictures of this lion, and its appearance can only be inferred from its bones and several complete skeletons found in asphalt pit traps* at the Rancho La Brea location in Los Angeles. About 10 thousand years ago, after the end of the Pleistocene period, this predator in America became extinct along with many other species of large mammals.
* In the late Pleistocene, at the foot of the hills, in an area now called Hollywood, swamps extended into which oil poured out under pressure to the surface. Animals, attracted by water, came there and stuck (in the literal sense of the word) to oil, which, under the action of atmospheric oxygen, thickened and turned into bitumen. After death, they were gradually immersed in bitumen, where their bones were preserved.
A study of mitochondrial DNA in modern and fossil lions showed that they form two groups. One group includes modern subspecies of lions from Africa and Asia, the other includes the Pleistocene lions of Eurasia and northern North America. In addition, based on the results of a molecular genetic study of the remains of lions of the second half of the Pleistocene from the northeast of Eurasia and Alaska, biologists came to the conclusion that the Pleistocene lions of this region (in the second half of the Pleistocene they formed a single area - Beringia) are closer to the Eurasian cave lions than the Pleistocene dire lions of the rest of North America.
Based on the DNA of Pleistocene and modern lions and the paleontological findings of these ancient predators, experts describe their history as follows. The oldest cats, resembling lions, appeared in Africa more than 2 million years ago. From here they settled in Eurasia, where the Mosbakh lion lived about 500 thousand years ago ( Panthera fossilis, Reichenau, 1906). From this species of predatory cats, apparently, the cave lions, who originally lived in Europe, originated. By the end of the Pleistocene, the lions that remained in Africa after migration formed the species of modern African lions, which settled from there to Eurasia.
The next stage in the evolution of cave lions is associated with the spread of this species to the northeast of Eurasia and its adaptation to a cold climate. The subspecies of the cave lion, which lived in the north of Yakutia 70-10 thousand years ago, was somewhat smaller than modern lions, and it belongs to the subspecies Baryshnikov et Boeskorov, 2013, named after paleontologist N.K. Vereshchagin. Like the European subspecies, the Yakut cave lion became extinct about 10 thousand years ago.
The post-glacial history of lions is associated with only two modern subspecies of these cats: African ( panthera leo leo J. A. All n, 1924) and Asian ( Panthera leo persica Meyer, 1826) by lions. The African lion (thought to include several subspecies) is 20-25% larger than the Asian lion, and its males have large manes. The male Asiatic lion has a smaller mane or no mane at all. The body length of an African lion without a tail length reaches 170-250 cm in males and 140-175 cm in females. Shoulder height is about 123 cm for males and 107 cm for females. The weight of large males can reach 250 kg.
Modern lions moved to Transcaucasia and Southwestern Europe, when cave lions had already died out here. Although there is little evidence of this settlement, they are supported by archaeological finds showing that lions in the first millennium BC lived in the southeast of Europe and in the Northern Black Sea region.
Findings of lion bones are known in the settlements of the Trypillia culture on the territory of modern Ukraine (VI-III millennium BC), and one find was made in the ancient settlement of Olvia (IV-II centuries BC) in the vicinity of the city of Nikolaev. Images of lions on ancient works of art of the continental part of Greece and among the Scythians of the Northern Black Sea region indicate that at that time these animals were well known to people. On the Balkan Peninsula, the bones of lions are found during excavations of settlements of the II-I millennium BC. e., and the most famous image of ancient Greece is the Nemean lion, killed by the mythical hero Heracles in the mountains of Kitheron (east of the Balkan Peninsula). In Transcaucasia, the maximum distribution of modern species of lions dates back to the III-II millennium BC. e. Petroglyphs on the territory of Armenia show that lions in Transcaucasia in this era lived on the Armenian Highlands. Interestingly, the images of lions from Armenia represent animals with a large mane, like an African lion.
The disappearance of lions in Asia Minor, Transcaucasia and South-Eastern Europe occurred at the turn of our era. Unlike the extinction of the cave lion, the extinction of modern subspecies of lions is not due to climate change, but to human activities. Rapid population growth, changing landscapes, the extermination of herbivorous mammals that feed on big cats, and the active human hunt for lions, apparently, are the main reasons for the extinction of these animals in many areas of Eurasia.
In addition to direct archaeological data on lions of the historical period, there is one ancient Russian written source that suggests that these predators were distributed not only in the Northern Black Sea region, but also in the forest-steppe zone of the middle reaches of the Dnieper. In the "Instruction for Children", written by the great Kyiv prince Vladimir Monomakh, there is a mention of a large predator. "Instruction ..." is of particular interest, since this is the only secular work of art of Ancient Rus', containing details of the life of that era that are not found in the annals. Monomakh describes an incident that happened to him while hunting during his reign in Turov and Chernigov (1073-1094): “A fierce beast jumped on my hips and overturned my horse, and God kept me unharmed.”
Monomakh does not call the attacked predator by his own name, unlike other animals mentioned in the "Instruction ...": wild bulls, tarpans, deer, boars, bears, wolves. The absence of the name of the animal suggests that it was rarely seen at that time. Despite the brevity of the description, the ability of a predator to jump and the strength that allows a rider with a horse to fall to the ground show that it could not be any of the predatory animals mentioned in the Teaching ... - a bear or a wolf. This makes it possible to assume that the “fierce beast” was precisely the lion. The low population density of the forest-steppe zone of the Dnieper and Don basins, a large number of large mammals, most likely created the conditions for the existence of individual populations of lions in this area until the early Middle Ages.
Tiger cubs from the Uyandina River
Despite the fact that lions have been known to man since ancient times, quite a lot in the history and ecology of even modern lions remains poorly understood. At the same time, the subspecies of the Asiatic lion is already on the verge of extinction, and the range of the African subspecies has decreased by more than three times by the end of the 20th century. Data on animals that have become extinct on Earth over the past 10-12 thousand years are very important, as they can help to understand the reason for today's decrease in biological diversity. In particular, any finds of cave lions are interesting for determining the characteristics of the habitat and the reasons for the extinction of this species.
Two frozen mummies of a cave lion cub were found in the Abyisky region of Yakutia. The site is located on the right bank of the small Uyandina River, one of the left tributaries of the Indigirka River, approximately 25 km from the village of Abyiy. The discovery of lion cubs is a great success, because the mummies of predatory mammals of the Pleistocene period were not known before. The cubs were found in deposits dating from the end of the Pleistocene period, which most likely indicates that this is a subspecies of the Yakut cave lion. Panthera spelaea vereshchagini.
In recent years, interesting finds of frozen animal mummies of the Pleistocene period have been made by collectors of mammoth tusks. The collection of mammoth bones is a traditional type of economic activity of the population of Yakutia. At the end of July 2015, cave lion cubs were accidentally discovered by a team of subsoil users led by businessman Yakov Androsov during artificial thawing of one of the sections of the Uyandina river bank. In August 2015, the mummies were delivered to Yakutsk, where paleontologists from the Department of Mammoth Fauna Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) began to study them.
One of the finds is a complete and intact frozen mummy with wool. It can be used to describe the appearance and morphology of the cub. The mummy of the second cub is damaged, most likely by ice wedges inside the sediments in which it was buried. The head and part of the third of the body in front of it with one paw have been preserved from it. The estimated age of the lion cubs is one to three weeks. Such a conclusion can be drawn if you pay attention to the fact that the eyes of a whole found cub of a cave lion are half-open. In modern lions, cubs are born blind and their eyes fully open after about two weeks. In addition, computer scans of both finds showed that their milk teeth had not yet erupted (in modern lion cubs, milk teeth erupt three weeks after birth).
The soft tissues and fur of the cub are very well preserved. Immediately after the discovery, it was possible to straighten the tail and measure its length - about 7 cm, which is about a third of the body length. This is slightly less than that of the cubs of modern lions (about 3/5 of the body length). Claws have been preserved on the front and hind legs. Realizing the importance of their find, the members of the team, after examining, photographing and weighing, kept the mummies of the lion cubs in a frozen state, at a temperature of about −10 ° C. In a frozen state, they are preserved to this day for future research.
The cause of death of the ancient lion cubs has not yet been established. In the near future, they will be additionally examined on a CT scanner, but a preliminary similar study showed that there are no significant damages in the skeleton of a fully preserved cub. The sex of an ancient lion cub, like that of modern lion cubs, cannot be determined by external signs up to a month and a half.
At the age of one to two weeks, the cubs of modern lions remain helpless and completely dependent on their mother. The mother not only feeds them with milk, but also protects and warms them in cold weather, because the thermoregulation mechanism is not yet fully developed in the cubs. Before the cubs begin to walk (after 1.5-2 months), the lioness keeps at some distance from her group (pride), during the month she carries the cubs several times from one place to another in order to avoid increasing the smell in the den, which lion cubs can find other predators.
Cave lions of Yakutia
Although the way of life of the ancient lion of Yakutia remains little known, some of its features can already be judged now - after a preliminary study of the cubs found.
These predators lived in a cold climate, so their cubs were covered with thick and longer fur than the cubs of modern lions. The short tail and relatively small ears are also an adaptation to cold climates. Mammals living in similar climates have shorter tails and smaller ears than closely related species living in warmer climates. In addition, the found cubs show that the Yakut cave lion cubs had long limbs and they themselves were taller than their modern peers.
Scientists hope to learn about other features of the life of the cave lions of Yakutia as they study the finds, and some of them are guessed by the way of life of their modern relatives. One of the exciting questions is the structure of groups (prides) in cave lions.
The idea that cave lions did not form prides was expressed by the American paleontologist D. Guthrie. He was the first to draw attention to the fact that in African lions the formation of a large pride correlates with the size of the dominant male's mane. This secondary sexual characteristic is an indicator of the male's ability to form a pride and protect the territory he occupies. For example, the small size of the Asiatic lion's mane reflects the fact that this subspecies rarely forms groups of more than two females, and in African lions - owners of a large mane - the pride sometimes includes 20 females.
Evidence of fights between male Pleistocene lions, sometimes found on their bones, suggests that the males of these animals actively defended their territory, as, for example, tigers do. On the territory of a male tiger (an area of more than 100 km 2 ) two or three tigresses can constantly live, and the male has to constantly defend his territory from the invasion of other males. The result of such fights: male tigers rarely live to be ten years old. Judging by the shoulder blade of a cave lion from Chukotka, male clashes with each other were commonplace.
Like other large mammals of the late Pleistocene period, cave lions in Yakutia lived in the tundra-steppe. At the same time, numerous finds of the bones of these lions in the caves of Europe indicate that they lived not only on the plains. In Yakutia, lions, apparently, arranged a den in dense thickets of willow in river valleys or in thickets of low trees in gullies and ravines, where it was easier to hide cubs.
Probably, the main way of hunting for Pleistocene lions was to stalk the victim, when the lion sneaked up to it up to a short throw distance of 20-50 m, and then overtook and killed it with several jumps. Plots of rugged terrain and watering holes were the most convenient for such hunts. The Alaskan cave lion has been found to prey on large animals. Here, in the permafrost, a frozen mummy of a male primitive bison partially eaten by lions has been preserved. Surprisingly, the methods of hunting bison by ancient lions did not differ from the methods of hunting buffalo by modern African lions. It can be seen from the bites and scratches on the skin of the bison that the cave lions acted in concert: one predator stopped the bison, holding it with its claws by the croup, and the other strangled it, grabbing the muzzle, clamping the mouth and nostrils of the bison with teeth and claws.
Recently, evidence has emerged that cave lions have even attacked young mammoths. On the skin of the Yuki mammoth found in 2010 in Yakutia (the absolute age is about 35 thousand years), scratches more than 10 cm long were found in the neck, legs and chest, left by the claws of a cave lion, piercing almost through the centimeter skin. Yuka, although a young seven-year-old female, weighed more than 500 kg with a height of about 160 cm at the withers. Scratches on the skin did not in themselves cause her death, but may have greatly weakened the animal.
The found mummies of the cubs of the cave lion will have to study the DNA, examine in detail the internal organs and soft tissues. Careful examination of the cub, for example, the size of the stomach and its contents will help explain the cause of his death. In the very near future, the result of determining the absolute age of this unique find from radioactive carbon from samples of the wool of lion cubs is also expected.
Candidate of Biological Sciences Evgeny Mashchenko, Paleontological Institute. A. A. Borisyak RAS;
Doctor of Biological Sciences Gennady Boeskorov, Institute of Geology of Diamond and Precious Metals, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
Olga Potapova, curator of collections at the Museum of Mammoth Locations in Hot Springs, USA;
Candidate of Biological Sciences Albert Protopopov, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), "Science and Life", No. 6, 2016