Cave lion. Scientists have discovered a previously unknown subspecies of the African cave lion

Before man climbed to the top of the food chain, wild cats were the strongest and most successful hunters. Even today, these huge predators cause fear and at the same time admiration in a person who is not their competitor in hunting. And yet, prehistoric cats were much better in every way, especially when it comes to hunting. Today's article presents the 10 largest prehistoric felines.

The prehistoric cheetah belongs to the same genus as today's cheetahs. His appearance was very similar to the appearance of the modern cheetah, but its ancestor was many times larger. The giant cheetah was more like a modern lion in size, because its weight sometimes reached 150 kilograms, so the cheetah easily hunted larger animals. According to some reports, the ancient cheetahs were able to accelerate at speeds up to 115 kilometers per hour. The wild cat lived in the territory modern Europe and Asia, but could not survive the Ice Age.

This dangerous animal does not exist today, but there was a time when xenosmilus, along with other predatory cats, headed the food chain of the planet. Outwardly, he looked very much like saber-toothed tiger, however, unlike him, xenosmilus had much shorter teeth, which were similar to the teeth of a shark or predatory dinosaur. The formidable predator hunted from an ambush, after which he instantly killed the prey, tearing off pieces of meat from it. Xenosmilus was very large, sometimes its weight reached 230 kilograms. Little is known about the animal's habitat. The only place where it was possible to find his remains is Florida.

Currently, jaguars do not differ in particularly large sizes, as a rule, their weight is only 55-100 kilograms. As it turned out, they were not always so. In the distant past modern territory South and North America filled with giant jaguars. Unlike the modern jaguar, they had longer tails and limbs, and their size was several times larger. According to scientists, the animals lived on open plains along with lions and some other wild cats, and as a result of constant rivalry, they were forced to change their place of residence to more wooded areas. The size of a giant jaguar was equated to a modern tiger.

If the giant jaguars belonged to the same genus as modern ones, then the European jaguars belonged to a completely different one. Unfortunately, today it is still not known what the European jaguar looked like, but some information about it is still known. For example, scientists claim that the weight of this cat was more than 200 kilograms, and the habitat was such countries as Germany, England, the Netherlands, France and Spain.

Such a lion is considered a subspecies of the lion. Cave lions were incredibly large, and their weight reached 300 kilograms. Scary Predators lived in Europe after the ice age, where they were considered among the most dangerous creatures planets. Some sources say that these animals were sacred animals, so they were worshiped by many peoples, and perhaps they were simply afraid. Scientists have repeatedly found various figurines and drawings depicting a cave lion. It is known that cave lions did not have a mane.

One of the most feared and dangerous representatives wild cats prehistoric time is homotherium. The predator lived in the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, South and North America. The animal adapted so well to the climate of the tundra that it could live for more than 5 million years. The appearance of Homotherium was markedly different from the appearance of all wild cats. The front limbs of this giant were much longer than the hind limbs, which made it look like a hyena. This structure suggests that Homotherium did not jump very well, especially in contrast to modern cats. Although homoteria cannot be called the most, its weight reached a record 400 kilograms. This suggests that the beast was larger than even a modern tiger.

The appearance of the mahairod is similar to the appearance of the tiger, but it is much larger, with more long tail and huge fangs-knives. Whether he had the characteristic stripes of a tiger is still not known. The remains of mahairod were found in Africa, which indicates its place of residence, in addition, archaeologists are convinced that this wild cat was one of the largest of those times. The weight of mahairod reached half a ton, and in size it resembled a modern horse. Rhinos, elephants and other large herbivores formed the basis of the predator's diet. According to most scholars, the appearance of the Mahairod is most accurately shown in the film of 10,000 BC.

Of all the prehistoric wild cats known to mankind, the American lion is the second most famous after the Smilodon. Lions lived on the territory of modern Northern and South America, and died out about 11 thousand years ago at the very end of the ice age. Many scientists are convinced that this giant predator was related to today's lion. The weight of an American lion could reach 500 kilograms. There is a lot of controversy about his hunting, but most likely the beast hunted alone.

Most mysterious beast from the entire list was in second place among the largest cats. This tiger is not a separate species, most likely, it is a distant relative of the modern tiger. These giants lived in Asia, where they hunted very large herbivores. Everyone knows that today tigers are the most major representatives the cat family, but such large tigers as in prehistoric times are not even close today. The Pleistocene tiger was unusually large, and according to the remains found, it even lived in Russia.

The most famous representative of the cat family of prehistoric times. Smilodon had huge teeth like sharp knives and a muscular body with short legs. His body slightly resembled that of a modern bear, although he did not have the clumsiness that a bear has. The amazingly folded body of a predator allowed him to run with high speed even over long distances. Smilodons died out about 10 thousand years ago, which means that they lived at the same time as humans, and possibly even hunted them. Scientists believe that smilodons attacked the victim from an ambush.

Cave lions - ancient predators - got their name not because they lived in dark and cold caves. Indeed, they hid in caves during the period when they were waiting for the birth of offspring. However, according to modern paleontologists, their favorite habitats were endless steppe plains that stretched to the very horizon. Cave lions thrive in such semi-desert areas, on the hottest days escaping from the scorching rays of the sun under small branches of shrubs and small trees.

The animals got their name - "cave lion" due to the fact that scientists often found an image of a predator on the walls of ancient caves. Currently, paleontologists have discovered many areas in various countries world, whose cave walls are decorated with drawings made by people of the Stone Age. Similar drawings have been found in the grottoes of England, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Algeria and Syria. In the CIS a large number of images of lions were found in the territory stretching from the Caucasus to Chukotka and Primorye. A special place in such drawings is given to the image of a dexterous and swift predator - a cave lion. It is thanks to the presence of ancient drawings that modern scientists have obtained proof of the existence of this animal on the planet.

Cave lions lived on the planet at a time when the very climate of the Earth, warm and mild, and an abundance of food prepared the conditions for the formation new form life - predators. Then mammoths, yaks, donkeys, deer, camels and bison became victims of lions. Their tasty and tender meat was the basis of the diet of ferocious predators. Their favorite delicacy was horses and kulans, which, thanks to strong legs, the lions were not particularly difficult.

As you know, with climate change on Earth and global cooling, most animals were forced to migrate to the southern, warmer regions. However, the cave lions were in no hurry to leave the already inhabited places.

Scientists say that lions have long lived in Transcaucasia. They could be seen there in ancient times. In addition, it is known that the Kyiv prince Vladimir Monomakh even had to fight with one such predator. Judging by the preserved monuments of writing, then lions lived even in the lower reaches of the Don. However, according to paleontologists, cave lions disappeared 10-12 million years ago.

According to scientists, the entire body of cave lions was covered with short, uniform hair. Most likely, the animals were painted, like modern cougars and lions, in sand or clay tones that merged with the color of the landscape around them: sun-bleached steppes in summer and snow-covered desert river valleys in winter.

Ancient predators were swift, agile and very intelligent creatures. How else? After all, it was necessary to obtain living food. They became the top of the evolutionary chain: plants - herbivores - predators.

And now a detailed article on these animals has arrived with preliminary results of the study of the find:

"Development Arctic zone In recent years, Russia has brought a lot of discoveries of ancient frozen mummies of mammals. 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. The mummies of ancient Pleistocene lions 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 strongest and dangerous predator. It belongs to the species Panthera spelaea(Goldfuss, 1810) of the cat family ( Felidae), detachment 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 - the intermediate appearance between 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, ancient predator was of a dense build with developed subcutaneous fat on the abdomen, which sagged, 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 sometimes emphasized the presence of short hair and even "suspensions" under 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 weighed, apparently, 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 in the territory modern Ukraine(VI-III millennium BC), and one find was made in the ancient settlement of Olbia (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 ancient Greece- Nemean lion, killed by the mythical hero Hercules in the mountains of Cithaeron (east Balkan Peninsula). In Transcaucasia, the maximum distribution modern species lions date 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 "Instructions for Children", written by the great prince of Kyiv Vladimir Monomakh, there is a mention large predator. "Instruction ..." is of particular interest, since it is the only secular piece of art 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. Low population forest-steppe zone basins of the Dnieper and Don, 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. Collecting mammoth ivory - a traditional view economic activity 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 taken to Yakutsk, where they began to be examined by paleontologists from the Research Department mammoth fauna Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).

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, is up to one and a half months outward signs cannot be determined.

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. In mammals living in similar climatic conditions, the length of the tail and the size of the ears are smaller than in related species living in warm climate. 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, investigate in detail 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 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

The cave lion is a subspecies of the lion that became extinct approximately 10,000 years ago. It appeared on Earth 300-350 thousand years ago. Even by historical standards, this is a very long period of time. This subspecies has survived several ice ages, but why it disappeared is unknown. There is an opinion that the main reason is the lack of food. The beast had nothing to eat, and it died out. This is just a guess. But how it really happened - no one knows.

The cave lion got its name not at all because it chose caves as its habitat. In these natural formations he was dying, apparently considering them the most secluded place. There lived a mighty beast coniferous forests and in the meadows. It was there that many ungulates were found, on which the lion hunted.

Traces of this predator are found even in polar regions. There, reindeer and, most likely, cubs of cave bears served as food for him. These animals were the main diet. But besides them, lions hunted bison and young or old mammoths.

Many rock paintings depicting cave lions have been preserved. It is interesting that all the animals are depicted without manes. Maybe this subspecies had no mane at all, or maybe ancient man depicted only lionesses. But the tassels on the tails, which are inherent only to these big cats are depicted very carefully.

The habitat of the cave lion covered Europe, as well as the central and northern regions of Asia. In the northeast of Asia, the animals were the largest. Over time, they separated into a separate subspecies, called the East Siberian or Bering cave lion. In one of the ice ages, these predators came across the frozen Bering Strait to America. There they settled down to modern Peru.

So appeared american lion. In size, it significantly exceeded the Eurasian counterpart. It died out 10-14 thousand years ago for unclear reasons. Thus, there were three subspecies: Eurasian, East Siberian and American. The latter was the largest and the former the smallest. In size, it exceeded the modern African lion by 10%, and the American was as much as 25% larger.

As for the Eurasian subspecies, it can be assumed that it was found in Europe until the end of the first millennium BC. e. Therefore, the beast could well participate in the gladiator fights arranged in Ancient Rome. From him came the Asiatic and African lions. These are warm animals. As for the north, after the cave lion died out in the cold regions, representatives of this species did not remain there. The same goes for America.

These animals most likely lived in prides, like modern lions. This is again told by rock paintings. They depict many animals chasing one victim. So they hunted collectively. This is an integral feature of powerful cats, rightfully bearing the royal title. True, tigers are larger today, but at that distant time, cave lions were the strongest and largest representatives of the cat family.

Once upon a time, ancient animals lived on our land. The cave lion is one of them. He became the ancestor of modern lions. What was the cave lion in those distant times - we will tell you in our article.

In ancient times, amazing animals inhabited our planet. Some of them are not at all like the modern inhabitants of the Earth. But scientists believe that all modern animals descended from those same fossil ancestors. Today, thanks to computer technology, we can easily see what the ancestors of modern animals looked like, although they were seen with their own eyes only by ancient people who left a memory of these animals only in rock carvings.

The cave lion is one such ancient animal. He is an ancient representative of the cat family, the predatory order and belonged to the genus Panthers. Scientists all over the world have the opportunity to study this representative of the ancient fauna only by the remains of bones that are found during excavations.

How did scientists "get acquainted" with the cave lion?

On the territory of the present Russian region, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), in 1891, a scientist named Chersky found the femur of some large predatory beast. At that time, the scientist concluded that the fossil remains belong to a representative of ancient tigers. After this discovery, long years the ancient "tigers" were forgotten...

Until, almost a hundred years later, Nikolai Vereshchagin made a statement that these bones belong to the descendants of lions, not tigers. A little later, he wrote the book "The Cave Lion and its History in the Holarctic and within the USSR", in which he described all his findings and research results.

The appearance of an ancient animal - a cave lion

Having modeled the skeleton of an animal on the remains, scientists determined that the height of the cave lion was about 120 centimeters at the withers, the body length was 240 centimeters (without the length of the tail). Rock paintings show that the mane of these ancient felines was not very impressive. Cave lions could not boast of a head of hair, like that of modern African lions. The wool was uniform. The tail was decorated with a small tassel.

Where and when did cave lions live?

The appearance of this species of mammals is attributed to a period of about 300 thousand years ago. At that time, in the territory of modern Europe, the cave lion for the first time stood out as an independent subspecies. This ancient animal inhabited the entire area of ​​the northern part of the Eurasian continent. Its habitat was modern Chukotka and Alaska, as well as the Balkan Peninsula.

Archaeological excavations have allowed scientists to prove the habitation of lions in the territory of present-day countries, such as: England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria. The territory of the former Soviet republics (USSR) was also inhabited by these ancient animals. Rock paintings were found near Odessa and Kyiv.

Cave lion lifestyle

Cave lions lived in prides, like them. Although this lion is called a cave lion, in fact, it was rarely found in caves. This shelter was most of all intended for the injured or dying individuals who needed privacy. Therefore, so many remains are now found in caves.

What did the ancestors of modern lions eat?

The main food for these predators were large ungulates of that period: antelopes, deer, wild bulls and horses. Sometimes their prey was small cubs or giants.