Talk:Eurasian cave lion

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Leo1pard (talk) 04:06, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Merge European cave lion, Panthera leo fossilis and Panthera leo spelaea here?


The article for the Panthera leo fossilis is not that long, lacking inline citations throughout much of its text, and due to this cave lion's closer relationship to Panthera leo spelaea than to the modern Afro-Asiatic lion, it could be considered as Panthera spelaea fossilis. In addition, considering the vast range of spelaea, it is not purely European. Leo1pard (talk) 04:06, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Apart from the issue of whether or not fossilis is valid, especially as it is lined to spelaea, it is partly that the article Panthera leo fossilis is not so good:

"The Early Middle Pleistocene European cave lion is an extinct feline of the Pleistocene epoch. It was generally considered to be an early subspecies of the lion (Panthera leo), and thus called "Panthera leo fossilis," but a recent test suggests that cave lions may not have been subspecies of Panthera leo, but closely related to it. In that case, this felid would be called "Panthera fossilis." Some have placed it within the same species as the later cave lion, under the name "Panthera spelaea fossilis."

With a maximum head and body length of 2.4 m, which is about 0.5 m longer than today's African lions, Panthera leo fossilis was almost as big as the American cave lion from the Upper Pleistocene.

Many bone-fragments of this cat are known from Mosbach in Germany, a small village, which is now included in the town of Wiesbaden. A nearly complete skull was found at Mauer, near Heidelberg (Germany). In the same sediment as the lion-skull was a 550,000-year-old lower jaw from the early hominid Homo heidelbergensis. The oldest records of Panthera leo fossilis in Europe are from Isernia at Italy and are about 700,000 years old. A 1.75-million-year-old jaw of a lion or felid, from Olduvai in Kenya, shows a striking similarity to those of Europe.

From Panthera leo fossilis derived the Upper Pleistocene European cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea), which is recorded for the first time about 300,000 years ago."

And besides, Eastern and Southern African lions each have multiple trinomina, so I do not see an issue with fossilis and spelaea being used for the Eurasian cave lion. Leo1pard (talk) 07:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

On second thought, see this for more details. Leo1pard (talk) 12:47, 13 November 2017 (UTC)