The preliminary analysis of cave lion Cubs Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) from the Permafrost of Siberia

International audience A preliminary description is presented of the well-preserved frozen mummies of two cubs of the extinct cave lion Panthera spelaea (finds of 2017–2018, Semyuelyakh River, Yakutia, eastern Siberia, Russia). The fossil lion cubs were found in close proximity, but they do not belo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Quaternary
Main Authors: Boeskorov, Gennady, Plotnikov, Valery, Protopopov, Albert, Baryshnikov, Gennady, Fosse, Philippe, Dalén, Love, Stanton, David, Pavlov, Innokenty, Suzuki, Naoki, Tikhonov, Alexey
Other Authors: Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SB RAS), Academy of Sciences of Sakha Republic, Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences Moscow (RAS), Laboratoire méditerranéen de préhistoire Europe-Afrique (LAMPEA), Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Ministère de la Culture (MC), Centre for Palaeogenetics, Swedish Museum of Natural History (NRM), The Jikei University School of Medicine
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2021
Subjects:
cave lion
Panthera spelaea
cubs
morphological description
radiocarbon dating
Siberia
[SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences
Arctic
permafrost
Yakutia
Online Access:https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03451630
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03451630/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03451630/file/Boeskorov_et_al_2021.pdf
https://doi.org/10.3390/quat4030024
Description
Summary:International audience A preliminary description is presented of the well-preserved frozen mummies of two cubs of the extinct cave lion Panthera spelaea (finds of 2017–2018, Semyuelyakh River, Yakutia, eastern Siberia, Russia). The fossil lion cubs were found in close proximity, but they do not belong to the same litter, since their radiocarbon ages differ: the female (named ‘Sparta’) was dated to 27,962 ± 109 uncal years BP, and the male (named ‘Boris’) was dated to 43,448 ± 389 uncal years BP. The lion cubs have similar individual ages, 1–2 months. The general tone of the colour of the fur coat of Sparta is greyish to light brown, whereas, in Boris, the fur is generally lighter, greyish yellowish. It is, therefore, possible that light colouration prevailed with age in cave lions and was adaptive for northern snow-covered landscapes. The article discusses the results of computed tomography of cubs of the cave lion, the possible reasons for their death, and the peculiarities of their existence in the Siberian Arctic.

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