In Depth Further Reading – Two forms of cave lion: Middle Pleistocene Panthera spelaea fossilis Reichenau, 1906 and Upper Pleistocene Panthera spelaea spelaea Goldfuss, 1810 from the B�snik Cave, Poland – Adrian Marciszak & Krzysztof Stefaniak – 2010. – The hunted hunter: the capture of a lion (Panthera leo fossilis) at the Gran Dolina site, … Read more
In Depth Whereas Smilodon is without doubt the most famous prehistoric big cat, Dinofelis is the most notorious. This notoriety comes from the long association of Dinofelis hunting and eating early hominids like Homo habilis, Paranthropus and Australopithecus afarensis, thought by some to be an ancestor to modern humans. This predation reveals that Dinofelis was … Read more
Classification confusion Today the American lion is usually treated as a sub species of the African lion (Panthera leo) which is why it is more commonly credited as Panthera leo atrox. However there are a large number of researchers who consider the American lion to be different enough from the African lion to give it … Read more
In Depth Megantereon has a popular standing within the realm of big cat palaeontology as it is thought by many to be the ancestor to the considerably more famous Smilodon (often incorrectly dubbed the Sabre-toothed tiger). Megantereon itself is often referred to as a dirk toothed cat because while the upper canines are enlarged, they … Read more