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The history of lions in Europe is part of the wider history of the lion species complex. The rediscovery and confirmation of their presence in Europe, already known by myths, historical accounts and ancient art, was made possible by the finds of fossils of Pleistocene, Holocene and Ancient lions excavated in Europe since the early 19th century.
The oldest widely accepted fossils of P. fossilis in Europe date to around 700,000 years ago, such as that from Pakefield in England, [20] [21] [3] [22] with possible older fossils from Western Siberia dating to the late Early Pleistocene, [23] with a 2024 study suggesting a presence in Spain by 1 million years ago. [24]
This cat entered Eurasia about 780,000–700,000 years ago and gave rise to several lion-like forms. The first fossils that can be definitively classified as P. fossilis date to circa 660,000–612,000 years ago. [3] Possibly earlier records of P. fossilis. are known from the late Early Pleistocene (over 780,000 years ago) of Western Siberia. [10]
In European Ice Age caves, leopard bones are far rarer than those of lions, and all currently known fossils belong to adults, suggesting that they rarely, if ever, raised their cubs in caves. Where leopard remains are found in larger caves, they are often found in the cave's deeper recesses, as in Baumann's and Zoolithen Cave in Germany.
Panthera gombaszoegensis, also known as the European jaguar, is a Panthera species that lived from about 2.0 to 0.35 million years ago in Europe, as well as likely elsewhere in Eurasia. [1] The first fossils were excavated in 1938 in Gombasek Cave , Slovakia . [ 2 ]
The site is important for many reasons, including the degree of preservation of ancient land surfaces, the impressive total extent of the palaeolandscape beyond the quarries (over 26 km wide), its huge quantity of well-preserved animal bones, its numerous flint artifacts, and its hominin fossils that are among some of the most ancient found yet in Europe.
Eurasian cave lion may refer to: Panthera fossilis, the Middle Pleistocene Eurasian cave lion; Panthera spelaea, the Late Pleistocene Eurasian cave lion
Late Pleistocene in northern Spain, by Mauricio Antón.Left to right: wild horse; woolly mammoth; reindeer; cave lion; woolly rhinoceros Mural of the La Brea Tar Pits by Charles R. Knight, including sabertooth cats (Smilodon fatalis, left) ground sloths (Paramylodon harlani, right) and Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus columbi, background)