During the late Pleistocene, lions were the most widely distributed land-mammals on earth except for man. They ranged from their present sub-Saharan homeland throughout Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia, North America and eventually South America as far as Peru.

Over half a million years ago, lions (Panthera leo) separated into two groups that subsequently had little interaction or genetic exchange. The cave lion group (Panthera leo fossilis-spelaea) entered Europe and Northern Asia and apparently remained geographically (and later perhaps behaviorally) isolated from African and Southern Asian populations. The blood of those southern animals still flows in the present-day lions of sub-Saharan Africa (P. leo subgroup – senegalensis) and a few surviving individuals (P. leo persica) in the Gir Forest of India.

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American Lions (P. leo atrox) were descendents of the cave lion group. They entered North America crossing the Bering Land Bridge (Beringia) during an early series of glacial advances in the Pleistocene (Rancholabrean Land Mammal Age – chart to come I promise). Like their early Eurasian cousins they were some of the largest cats to have ever lived. Males, like the animal shown here were a full 25% larger than the biggest of today’s lions. Where a big, wild male today might weigh 450 pounds, a live weight of 600 pounds or more was possible for atrox. And they had to be big and powerful. From (rather famous) remains in Alaska, we know they preyed on enormous Ice Age bison.

An unusual feature of American Lions is that they had larger brains, relative to body size, than lions anywhere else. I’m not sure just what that might indicate behaviorally, but it’s an interesting aspect of what must have been a truly awesome cat.

European cave lions have been depicted by our ancestors both in pigment and as carvings. Interestingly, no long-maned males were portrayed. There are however, marks on one of the carvings that might indicate somewhat longer hair on the neck and shoulders, and one cave painting I remember showed longer chest and belly hair. I based the mane of our animal here on those representations.

Within the genus Panthera the splits into species seem counter-intuitive to me. Apparently, new genetic work has estimated that tigers split off first about 2 million years ago, followed by the jaguar. I would have thought just looking at them and from the fact that they can still produce offspring (sometimes viable – sometimes sterile), that lion/tiger was the latest speciation. But it appears, that the leopard/lion divergence was the last, some 1.25 to 1.5 million years ago.