Cave lion dimensions. Ancient animals. Cave lion. African cave lions were as tall as a man

The cave lion is a fossil subspecies of lion that lived during the Pleistocene era (part of the Quaternary period). He lived in Europe and Siberia.

Until recently, its systematic status was controversial, with some considering it a separate felid species.

It has now been more or less definitively established that the cave lion was just a subspecies of lion, albeit clearly distinct.

Appearance

The cave lion, like other representatives of the ancient Cenozoic fauna, was quite large sizes. It reached more than two meters in length, excluding the tail, and its height at the withers exceeded 120 cm.

The cave lion was larger in size than modern lions, but was not the largest - many of its close relatives were much larger.

Cave lions appeared about 300 thousand years ago and existed for very for a long time– right up to the appearance of the first human cultures. Known a large number of rock paintings of a cave lion, which helped scientists draw conclusions regarding its appearance:

• The color of his coat, apparently, was uniform, without spots or stripes;
• Many drawings depict a tassel on its tail - the same as on modern lions;
• Almost all drawings depict a cave lion without a mane, so one might think that he had no mane at all or only a small one.

Relation to other extinct lions

The cave lion descended from the more ancient Mosbach subspecies, which appeared in Europe about 700 thousand years ago. This lion was even larger and matched the size of a liger. Some sources call Mosbach lions cave lions, but this is incorrect and can lead to confusion.

cave lions photos

The cave lion turned out to be more resilient than its Mosbach ancestor and went far to the north, even during glaciations. From it came other subspecies - the East Siberian cave lion (extinct only 10 thousand years ago) and the American lion, into which the cave lion turned, crossing to the American continent along the then existing Bering Bridge between Chukotka and Alaska.

Lifestyle. Nutrition

As already mentioned, the cave lion was a very hardy predator and could exist even in conditions of severe glaciation. The paw prints of lions are preserved, which are found next to the paws of reindeer. These deer apparently formed part of the diet of cave lions; lions also hunted wild horses, bulls, and antelopes.

In Pleistocene sediments near Darmstadt, Germany, the bones of a cave lion were discovered, on whose leg there were signs of serious inflammation that prevented him from walking, but which later disappeared. This detail allowed us to draw a grand conclusion: a serious illness did not lead to the death of the lion - which means that other lions supplied it with food; Consequently, cave lions, like their modern counterparts, lived in prides.

Despite the name, cave lions rarely visited caves. They preferred to live in the open, and went to caves during illness or in order to die. Since caves were where they most often died, most of the cave lion fossils were found there.

cave lion with prey photo

Uniformity in diet (except for ungulates, cave lions occasionally hunted cave bears) could have caused the extinction of these predators. In the era of global warming, reindeer and cave bears began to gradually disappear, which is why lions lost their main source of food and also began to die out.

Unlike them, modern lions attack any living creature, so they are not threatened with extinction from hunger.

History of the study

The first representatives of prehistoric big cats in the north - in Yakutia - were discovered in 1891 by a researcher named Chersky. He suggested that the remains belonged to ancient tigers. However, the find was quickly forgotten.

They remembered it almost a hundred years later, when the famous paleontologist Nikolai Vereshchagin proved that they did not belong to tigers, but to cave lions.

Later, Vereshchagin wrote an entire book dedicated to these fossil lions. True, at first he proposed calling them tigrols, which today can lead to confusion: in our time, a modern hybrid of a lion and a tiger is usually called a tigrol. Subsequently, the remains of cave lions were discovered in different places Europe, especially in Germany and France.

• Class - Mammals
• Squad - Predatory
• Family - Felines
• Rod - Panthers
• View - Leo
• Subspecies - Cave lion

Joseph Henri Roney Sr.

Cave lion

Abridged translation from French and Orlovskaya

Drawings by L. Durasov

Part one

Chapter 1 Un and Zur

Un, the son of the Bull, loved to visit underground caves. He caught blind fish and colorless crayfish there with Zur, the son of the Earth, the last of the Wa tribe, the Men Without Shoulders, who survived the extermination of his people by the Red Dwarfs.

For days Un and Zur wandered along the course of the underground river. Often its shore was just a narrow stone cornice. Sometimes we had to crawl through a narrow corridor of porphyry, gneiss, and basalt. Zur lit a resin torch from the branches of a turpentine tree, and the crimson flame was reflected in the sparkling quartz arches and in the rapidly flowing waters of the underground stream. Bending over the black water, they watched the pale, colorless animals swimming in it, then walked further, to the place where the road was blocked by a blank granite wall, from under which an underground river noisily burst out. Un and Zur stood for a long time in front of the black wall. How they wanted to overcome this mysterious barrier that the Ulamr tribe encountered six years ago, during their migration from north to south.

Un, the son of the Bull, belonged, according to the custom of the tribe, to his mother's brother. But he preferred his father Nao, the son of Leopard, from whom he inherited a powerful build, tireless lungs and extraordinary acuity of feelings. His hair fell over his shoulders in thick, coarse strands, like the mane of a wild horse; the eyes were the color of gray clay. His enormous physical strength made him a dangerous opponent. But even more than Nao, Un was inclined to be generous if the defeated person lay prostrate on the ground in front of him. Therefore, the Ulamrs, while paying tribute to the strength and courage of Un, treated him with some disdain.

He always hunted alone or together with Zur, whom the Ulamrs despised for his weakness, although no one knew so skillfully how to find stones suitable for making fire and how to make tinder from the soft core of a tree.

Zur had a narrow, flexible body, like a lizard. His shoulders were so sloping that his arms seemed to come straight out of his body. This is how all the Vas, the tribe of the Men Without Shoulders, have looked like this since time immemorial. Zur thought slowly, but his mind was more sophisticated than that of the people of the Ulamr tribe.

Zur loved being in underground caves even more than Un. His ancestors and the ancestors of his ancestors had always lived in lands abounding in streams and rivers, some of which disappeared under the hills or were lost in the depths of the mountain ranges.

One morning friends were wandering along the river bank. They saw the crimson ball of the sun rise above the horizon and golden light flood the surrounding area. Zur knew that he liked to follow the rushing waves; Un, however, surrendered to this pleasure unconsciously. They headed towards the underground caves. The mountains rose right in front of them - high and inaccessible. Steep, sharp peaks stretched like an endless wall from north to south, and nowhere was a passage visible between them. Un and Zur, like the entire Ulamr tribe, passionately dreamed of overcoming this indestructible barrier.

For more than fifteen years, the Ulamrs, having left their native places, wandered from the northwest to the southeast. Moving south, they soon noticed that the further they went, the richer the land became, and the more abundant the spoils. And gradually people got used to this endless journey.

But a huge mountain range stood in their way, and the tribe’s advance to the south stopped. The Ulamrs searched in vain for a passage among the impregnable stone peaks.

Un and Zur sat down to rest in the reeds, under the black poplars. Three mammoths, huge and majestic, walked along the opposite bank of the river. Antelopes could be seen running in the distance; The rhinoceros appeared from behind a rocky ledge. Excitement took over Nao's son. How he wanted to overcome the space separating him from his prey!

Sighing, he stood up and walked upstream, followed by Zur. Soon they found themselves in front of a dark hole in the rock, from where a river was noisily gushing out. The bats rushed into the darkness, frightened by the appearance of people.

Excited by a thought that suddenly came into his head, Un said to Zur:

There are other lands beyond the mountains!

Zur replied:

The river flows from sunny countries.

People without shoulders have long known that all rivers and streams have a beginning and an end.

The blue darkness of the cave gave way to the darkness of an underground labyrinth. Xur lit one of the resinous branches he had taken with him. But the friends could have done without light - they knew every turn of the underground path so well.

Un and Zur walked all day through gloomy passages along the course of an underground river, jumping over pits and crevices, and in the evening they fell soundly asleep on the shore, having dined on crayfish baked in ash.

At night they were awakened by a sudden shock that seemed to come from the very depths of the mountain. The roar of falling stones and the crackling of crumbling rocks could be heard. Then there was silence. And, not being able to figure out what was going on, the friends fell asleep again.

Vague memories took possession of Zur.

The earth shook,” he said.

Un did not understand Zur’s words and did not try to understand their meaning. His thoughts were short and swift. He could only think about the obstacles that were immediately in front of him, or about the prey he was pursuing. His impatience grew, and he quickened his steps, so that Zur could barely keep up with him. Long before the end of the second day they reached the place where a blank stone wall usually blocked their path.

Xur lit a new resinous torch. A bright flame illuminated the high wall, reflected in countless fractures of the quartz rock.

An astonished exclamation escaped both young men: there was a wide crack in the stone wall!

This is because the earth shook,” said Zur.

With one leap, Un found himself at the edge of the crack. The passage was wide enough to let a person through. Un knew what treacherous traps lurked in the newly split rocks. But his impatience was so great that he, without thinking, squeezed into the blackened stone gap in front of him, so narrow that it was possible to move forward with great difficulty. Zur followed the son of the Bull. Love for his friend made him forget his natural caution.

Soon the passage became so narrow and low that they could barely squeeze between the stones, bent over, almost crawling. The air was hot and stuffy, it was becoming more and more difficult to breathe... Suddenly a sharp ledge of a rock blocked their path.

Before humans climbed to the top of the food chain, wild cats were the most powerful and successful hunters. Even today, these huge predators evoke fear and at the same time admiration in a person who is not their competitor in the hunt. And yet, prehistoric cats were much better in all respects, 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 a modern cheetah, but its ancestor was many times larger. The giant cheetah was more reminiscent of a modern lion in size, because its weight sometimes reached 150 kilograms, so the cheetah easily hunted larger animals. According to some data, ancient cheetahs were capable of accelerating at speeds of up to 115 kilometers per hour. The wild cat lived in the territory of 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 planet's food chain. Outwardly, it was very similar to a saber-toothed tiger, but unlike it, xenosmilus had much shorter teeth, which were similar to the teeth of a shark or predatory dinosaur. The formidable predator hunted from ambush, after which it 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 habitat of the beast. The only place where his remains were discovered is Florida.

Currently, jaguars are not particularly large in size; as a rule, their weight is only 55-100 kilograms. As it turned out, they were not always like this. In the distant past, the modern territory of South and North America was 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 together with lions and some other wild cats, and as a result of constant competition they were forced to change their place of residence to more wooded areas. The size of a giant jaguar was equal to a modern tiger.

If giant jaguars belonged to the same genus as modern ones, then 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 its habitat was countries such as Germany, England, the Netherlands, France and Spain.

This lion is considered a subspecies of lion. Cave lions were incredibly large in size, and their weight reached 300 kilograms. Terrible predators lived in Europe after the Ice Age, where they were considered one of the most dangerous creatures on the planet. Some sources say that these animals were sacred animals, so they were worshiped by many peoples, and perhaps they were simply feared. 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 terrible and dangerous representatives wild cats of prehistoric times are homotherium. The predator lived in the countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, South and North America. The animal adapted so well to the tundra climate that it could live for more than 5 million years. The appearance of Homotherium was noticeably different from the appearance of all wild cats. The forelimbs of this giant were much longer than the hind limbs, which made him look like a hyena. This structure suggests that Homotherium was not a very good jumper, especially unlike modern cats. Although Homotherium cannot be called the most, its weight reached a record 400 kilograms. This suggests that the animal was larger than even a modern tiger.

The appearance of a mahairod is similar to that of a tiger, but it is much larger, with a longer tail and huge knife fangs. Whether he had the stripes characteristic of a tiger is still not known. The remains of the 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 the mahairod reached half a ton, and in size it resembled a modern horse. The predator's diet consisted of rhinoceroses, elephants and other large herbivores. According to most scholars, the appearance of the mahairod is most accurately depicted in the film 10,000 BC.

Of all known to mankind wild cats of prehistoric times, the American lion is second in popularity after Smilodon. Lions lived on the territory of modern Northern and South America, and became extinct 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 its hunting, but most likely the animal hunted alone.

The most mysterious animal on 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 largest representatives of the cat family, but today there are no tigers as large as in prehistoric times. The Pleistocene tiger was unusually large sizes, and according to the found remains, he 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 predator's stunningly built body allowed it to run at high speed even over long distances. Smilodon died out about 10 thousand years ago, which means they lived at the same time as humans, and perhaps even hunted them. Scientists believe that Smilodon attacked prey from an ambush.

Physician and naturalist Georg August Goldfuss, who found the skull of a cave lion in Franconian Alba.

In Soviet paleontology, on the initiative of Nikolai Vereshchagin, the cave lion was called 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. The fact that it is sometimes also called 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. 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 to the north. In the northeast of Eurasia, a separate subspecies has 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 evolved 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 probably became extinct during the same period, but it is possible that it persisted for some time on the Balkan Peninsula. Regarding the lions that existed on it until the beginning of our era, it is unknown whether they were cave lions.

Appearance

The skeleton of an adult male cave lion, found in 1985 near Siegsdorf, Germany, had a height at the withers of 1.20 m and a length of 2.1 m excluding the 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 enormous size of Mosbach lions and American lions. Stone Age cave paintings allow us to draw some conclusions about the coloring of the fur and mane of the cave lion. Particularly impressive images 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 as impressive. Often this image shows the characteristic tuft on the tail of lions. The coloring of the fur, apparently, was one color.

A well-preserved corpse of a lion cub at the age of several months was discovered in Yakutia, as well as two more slightly worse-preserved specimens.

Lifestyle

Relatives

Unlike the Mosbach lion, regarding the classification of which as Panthera leo fossilis There has always been unanimity 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 distinguished as a separate species. In 2004, German scientists were able to unambiguously identify it using DNA analysis as a subspecies of lion. Thus, the dispute that had existed since the first description of this animal in 1810 was ended. 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 American lion ( P.l. atrox). All modern subspecies of lions belong to the group Leo. Both groups separated about 600 thousand years ago. Some fossil specimens of the extinct American lion were larger than the Mosbach lion and were thus among the largest felines that ever existed. Previously, they were considered a separate species, called giant

Sometimes they ask: “Which of the large predatory animals lived in Europe and Northern Asia during the Ice Age?” And many people don’t believe it when you answer: “Lion.”

Found at the mouth of the river. Yana femur one large predator became very interested in I.D. Chersky in 1891. Despite some doubts and logical incompatibilities, he concluded that in the age of the mammoth tigers lived near him in Yakutia. Since then, a lot of water has flown under the bridge, and a lot of paleontological discoveries have been collected.

In 1971, Professor N.K. Vereshchagin in the book “Materials of the anthropogenic fauna in the USSR”, based on a study of lion bones found in the territory Soviet Union, as well as paleontological materials from North America, published a large article. This work used data on exhibits - lion bones found at different times in Yakutia (they are stored at the Moscow Zoological Institute). So our story about lions will mainly be based on the materials of N.K. Vereshchagin.

Single lion bones were discovered in more than ten places in the northern and central regions of Yakutia. In 1930, M.M. Ermolaev on Bolshoi Lyakhovsky Island, and in 1963, geologist F.F. Ilyin on the Mohoho River, a tributary of the Olenka, found the skulls of lions that lived during the Ice Age. The parietal and other lion bones found at Duvanny Yar in Kolyma are in the museum of the Yaroslavl Scientific Center of the Academy of Sciences of Russia. In addition, the bones of the king of beasts, the mighty lion, were found at the mouth of the Syuryuktyakh - a tributary of the Indigirka, on the Berezovka - a tributary of the Kolyma, the Adycha - a tributary of the Yana, as well as in the basins of the river. Aldan and Vilyui. Some rare finds are available in regional museums. The lower jaw of a lion that lived more than ten thousand years ago is exhibited in the Ytyk-Kyuel Museum of the Tattinsky district.

So, according to reliable scientific data, in the Ice Age in Yakutia, along with such giants as the mammoth and rhinoceros, there lived not a tiger, as was sometimes written, but a lion. In reference books and scientific literature he is called not just a lion, but a cave lion. In fact, Ice Age lions in Yakutia did not live in caves. They must have hunted wild horses, bulls and deer on the ice-free plains and foothills of the mountains. A fierce and powerful predator, about whom we're talking about, paleontologists call not only the cave lion, but sometimes also the tiger lion or Pleistocene lion. However, he looked most like a lion.

This predator first appeared in the central steppes of Europe and Asia just before the beginning of the Quaternary period. Having multiplied greatly at the height of the Ice Age, at the very end of the Late Pleistocene, they, like mammoths, became extinct for some reason. Pleistocene lions were not the direct ancestors of the lions now found in Africa. During the late Pleistocene they spread throughout Northeast Asia and North America. As evidenced by fossil bones, very large cave lions were found in North America. Modern African lions reach a maximum length of 2.2 m, while the lions of Eurasia of the Ice Age reach 2.5-3.4 m. And the predators of North America that became extinct tens of thousands of years ago had a length of up to 2.7-4.0 m!

When the Ice Age began in the northern latitudes of Eurasia and North America, these large animals were sometimes forced to take refuge from the snowy winds and cold in mountain caves. And they began to encounter Stone Age people who lived there, who left many drawings of lions on the walls of their homes. As archaeologists and geologists write, such “portraits” of lions were found in caves in France, Spain, England, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and in the USSR - near Odessa, Tiraspol, Kiev, the Urals, and the Perm region.

Sometimes sculptures of lions made of bone, stone and clay are also found. Stone Age people, fearing these formidable predators, worshiped them so as not to be torn to pieces during hunting and in fights in caves. Experts confirm that the bones of some lions, especially the interorbitals, have pathological changes and defects associated with diseases. It can be seen that they were susceptible to bone diseases, suffered from gadflies or similar tsetse flies, which infect livestock in our time.

Only two almost completely preserved cave lion skeletons are known throughout the world. One of them is considered the most valuable exhibit of the Brno Museum in Czechoslovakia. The second skeleton was found in the USA in oil that thickened like tar and then hardened. When you look at a photograph of the skeleton, the greatly elongated legs and tail of the cave lion catch your eye. The chest is narrow, the neck is quite long. Judging by the skeleton, the animal had very strong forelimbs. On the lower and upper jaws there are powerful sharp fangs similar to the head of a keel.

Currently, the world's lion populations are very small. At the end of the 60s, there were 250 predators in Indian zoos, national parks African states - about 150 thousand...

Sometimes they ask about bears from the times of the mammoth and cave lion. In 1966, in Poland, during marble mining in the Sudeten Mountains, a previously unknown mountain cave with branches of several floors was discovered. Scientists suggest that it was formed about 50 million years ago as a result of the leaching of limestone by groundwater circulating through the cracks of these water-soluble rocks. During the Ice Age, both wild animals and people of that time found shelter in this cave. During the exploration of the cave, about 40 thousand different bear bones were found.* Therefore, they called it “Bear Cave”. Along with the remains of so many bears were found rare bones of wolves and martens. Stone Age people lived in one of the recesses of the cave. When more than half of Europe found itself under the cover glacier, bears, wolves, and lions were apparently forced to take refuge in caves. The emaciated, disease-prone animals died in large numbers. This is how the animal cemetery came into being. However, scientists have not yet given a precise explanation for the unusual accumulation of bear bones.

“Bear Cave” is very long, with branches of hundreds of meters. They, sometimes narrowing, sometimes widening, form underground halls reminiscent of fairy-tale palaces. When you illuminate the dark halls, it’s as if you find yourself in the country of Olonkho, and a charming picture of an unknown underground kingdom opens before you. The ceiling is decorated with hanging crystal-like icicles. Below is a labyrinth sparkling with various sparks of light, graceful growths of limestone formations! In some places they converge with stepped shafts of the same color and shine, similar to streams frozen in a rapid run. Everything beautiful in nature is the property of all humanity. That is why the Bear Cave was included in the tourist route, and construction work began here in 1980.

There are no such large caves in Yakutia, but individual bones of a bear, wolf, elk and other mammoth companions are found. By the way, the corpse of a wolverine was once discovered at the famous Berelekh cemetery.

Many questions arise about the fact that during the Ice Age, the inhabitants of the harsh North were relatives of miniature but fleet-footed roe deer. Residents of Yakutia are well aware of these graceful animals, which move in such smooth and wide jumps, as if you see them in slow motion.

One of the species of roe deer, named Sorgelia in honor of the German geologist who was the first to find the skull of an ancient goat in the world, lived in Yakutia next to mammoths during the Ice Age. The Sorgelia skull was found in 1973 on the Adycha River (a tributary of the Yana) by local history teacher M.A. Sleptsov. This is the second such trophy after the discovery of the German geologist. As a rare exhibit, it is now kept in the Central Moscow Zoological Museum, and a plaster copy of the skull is on display in the Adychan School Museum...

When you talk about the Ice Age, the giants of that time, listeners usually ask a lot of questions. These are mostly questions related to the most recent geological history of the Earth, called the Quaternary. In just a million years, there have been significant fluctuations in the climate of the Earth's Northern Hemisphere and major changes in the animal and plant kingdoms. The world suffered particularly significant damage large mammals. In Yakutia and throughout the north of Asia and Europe, mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, lions, wild bulls, and Sorgelia have become completely extinct. Most of the surviving animals decreased significantly in size. Modern horses, moose, and polar bears, in comparison with their ancient relatives of the Ice Age, are smaller species.