Panthera atrox (a.k.a.‭ ‬American lion,‭ ‬Naegele’s giant jaguar‭ & ‬American cave lion‭)

Pan-fee-rah lee-oh a-troks.
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Claire Morris

Marine Paleontologist

Claire Morris has dedicated her career to exploring the depths of prehistoric oceans. Her fascination with ancient marine life has led her to discover significant fossils that illuminate the evolution of early sea creatures.

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Name

Panthera atrox

Phonetic

Pan-fee-rah lee-oh a-troks.

Named By

Joseph Liedy‭ ‬-‭ ‬1853.

Classification

Chordata,‭ ‬Mammalia,‭ ‬Carnivora,‭ ‬Felidae,‭ ‬Panthera.

Diet

Carnivore.

Species

Size

1.2‭ ‬meters high at the shoulder,‭ ‬up to‭ ‬2.5‭ ‬meters long.

Known locations

North America,‭ ‬also known from places in South America.

Time Period

Late Ionian to Tarantian of the Pleistocene.

Fossil representation

Hundreds of specimens,‭ ‬but often of fragmentary remains.

In Depth

Further Reading

– Pleistocene remains of the lion-like cat (Panthera atrox) from the Yukon Territory and northern Alaska – Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 6(5) C. R. Harrington – 1969. – Mandibular and dental abnormalities of two Pleistocene American lions (Panthera leo atrox) from Yukon Territory. – B. F. Beebe & T. J. Hulland – 1988. – Evolution of the mane and group-living in the lion (Panthera leo): a review – Journal of Zoology Volume 263, Issue 4, pages 329–342. – Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Alan Cooper, Lars Werdelin & David W. Macdonald – 2004. – Phylogeography of lions (Panthera leo ssp.) reveals three distinct taxa and a late Pleistocene reduction in genetic diversity. – Molecular Ecology 18 (8): 1668–1677 – Ross Barnett, Beth Shapiro, Ian Barnes, Simony W. Ho, Joachim Burger, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Thomas F. G. Highham, H. Todd Wheeler, Wilfred Rosendahl, Andrei V. Sher, Marina Sotnikova, tatiana Kuznetsova, Gennady F. Baryshnikov, Larry D. Martin, C. Richard Burns & Alan Cooper – 2009. – Panthera leo atrox (Mammalia: Carnivora: Felidae) in Chiapas, Mexico. – The Southwestern Naturalist 54 (2): 217–222. – Marisol Montellano-Ballesteros & Gerardo Carbot-Chanona – 2009. – Craniomandibular Morphology and Phylogenetic Affinities of Panthera atrox: Implications for the Evolution and Paleobiology of the Lion Lineage. – Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29 (3): 934–945. – Per Christiansen & John M. Harris – 2009. – Phylogenetics of Panthera, including Panthera atrox, based on craniodental characters. – Historical Biology: 1. – L. M. King & S. C. Wallace – 2014. – Mitogenomics of the Extinct Cave Lion, Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810), Resolve its Position within the Panthera Cats. – Open Quaternary. 2: 4. – Ross Barnett, Marie Lisandra Zepeda, Mendoza, Andr� Elias Rodrigues Soares, Simon Y W Ho, Grant Zazula, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Beth Shapiro, Irina V Kirillova, Greger Larson, M Thomas & P Gilbert – 2016. – The fossil American lion (Panthera atrox) in South America: Palaeobiogeographical implications. – Comptes Rendus Palevol. 16 (8): 850–864. – N. R. Chimento & F. L. Agnolin – 2017. – Early Pleistocene origin and extensive intra-species diversity of the extinct cave lion. – Scientific Reports. 10: 12621. – David W. G. Stanton, Federica Alberti, Valery Plotnikov, Semyon Androsov, Semyon Grigoriev, Sergey Fedorov, Pavel Kosintsev, Doris Nagel, Sergey Vartanyan, Ian Barnes, Ross Barnett, Erik Ersmark, Doris D�ppes, Mietje Germonpr�, Michael Hofreiter, Wilfried Rosendahl, Pontus Skoglund & Love Dal�n – 2020. – The evolutionary history of extinct and living lions. – PNAS. 117 (20): 10927–10934. – Marc de Manuel, Ross Barnett, Marcela Sandoval-Velasco, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, Filipe Garrett Vieira, M. Lisandra Zepeda Mendoza, Shiping Liu, Michael D. Martin, Mikkel-Holger S. Sinding, Sarah S. T. Mak, Christian Car�e, Shanlin Liu, Chunxue Guo, Jiao Zheng, Grant Zazula, Gennady Baryshnikov, Eduardo Eizirik, Klaus-Peter Koepfli, Warren E. Johnson, Agostinho Antunes, Thomas Sicheritz-Ponten, Shyam Gopalakrishnan, Greger Larson, Huanming Yang, Stephen J. O’Brien, Anders J. Hansen, Guojie Zhang, Tomas Marques-Bonet & M. Thomas P. Gilbert – 2020.

SPECIES SPOTLIGHT