Panthera leo spelaea

Panthera spelaea, commonly known as the cave lion is an extinct Panthera species that was native to Eurasia and northwest North America during the Pleistocene epoch. Genetic analysis of ancient DNA has revealed that while closely related, it was a distinct species genetically isolated from the modern lion, with the genetic divergence between the two species estimated at 500,000 to 1 million years ago.

Panthera leo spelaea

Uncredited · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
Panthera leoPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Panthera
Life habit
scansorialPBDB, for Felidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria
Length
2.1 mWikidata
Mass
339 kgWikidata

Time the record covers

At least 645 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene — about 16 of 16 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 16 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences774 ka129 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

16 occurrences of Panthera leo spelaea on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

16 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Unterer Travertin — 50.95°N, 11.38°E

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The named rock units Panthera leo spelaea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Panthera leo spelaea and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Panthera leo spelaea and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

160 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Panthera leo spelaea, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

12 references

Each of the 16 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Panthera leo spelaea

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Panthera leo spelaea was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPanthera leo through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Goldfuss 1810)