Two cave lions that have been sleeping for tens of thousands of years - found in the permafrost of Siberia , once difficult to determine the relationship between the two!
In the middle and late Pleistocene, the cold zone of Eurasia lived a group of extremely powerful beasts, with a body that could grow to 2 meters long, looking nearly half the size of the African lion, and its mouth could be opened to 180 degrees! Many years ago, similar animals may have been seen only on cave paintings, but then archaeologists have actually found well-preserved cave lion carcasses in the Siberian tundra, a place also known as the "Sleeping Place".
Many people may not know that in 2017, scientists accidentally found the remains of two cave lions, and at that time they thought that the two cave lion cubs who were not yet adults were brothers and sisters.
However, Russian and Japanese scientists have recently produced new research results:
First of all, the two cave lions are indeed one female and one male, but the time of death of the two of them is about 15,000 years, of which the male cave lion died more than 40,000 years ago (43,448 years ago, the result of the radio "carbon dating method"), while the other female cave lion, its death time should be 28,000 years ago.
Secondly, the female cave lion and the male cave lion are indeed relatively close in age at the time of death, and the place where they are found is only 49 feet apart, so they will be mistaken for brothers and sisters when they are first discovered. Among them, the male cave lion named Boris should die between 1 and 2 months, while the female cave lion named Spartan is less than two months old when she dies.
Moreover, as mentioned earlier, the cave lion can reach 2 meters in length after adulthood, and the remains of the two cave lions found in the Siberian permafrost are actually very small, plus the hair on the body is relatively well preserved, especially the female cave lion that determines the age, its whiskers, soft tissues, skin and teeth can be said to be intact, which are an important basis for determining the accurate age.
Why may the two cave lion cubs have died in a mudslide, or they may have stumbled into a crack in the permafrost, but are unlikely to have died from predator hunting?
From the scans of the equipment, there was indeed evidence of injuries on the cave lions, such as damage to their skulls, ribs and other bones, but their bodies were well preserved, indicating that both were buried in a very short period of time. If they had really died at the hands of hunters, they would most likely have been eaten to the point where only bones were left, or even nothing left, and there would have been no later discoveries by scientists in the frozen soil.
Scientists involved in the study said that the cause of death of the two cave lions was likely to be accidentally falling into the permafrost, or buried in the place because of a mudslide, so their bodies were indeed injured inside, but the appearance was relatively well preserved, which is also in line with the freezing and thawing of the permafrost due to the change of seasons.
What kind of animal is the cave lion, and how did scientists find the remains of the cave lion?
Cave lions have indeed become extinct, have been living in cold places, they take the cave as their hiding place, so there is a cave lion name, the time of extinction of the entire group should be about ten thousand years ago, the current human understanding of them, mainly from the fossil record and research results.
For example, the two cave lion cubs who lived in different periods, the female cave lion who is closer to the present, its hair color is obviously darker, it looks gray to light brown, and the male cave lion, which is more than 40,000 years old, has a grayish yellow hair color. Scientists believe that perhaps the coat of cave lions changes due to age, because the place where they live is often covered with snow, so the color of their hair should become lighter.
You know, the remains of these two cave lion cubs, although the surface of the male cave lion is more or less damaged, but the remains of the other female cave lion are likely to be the best preserved of all the ice age animals that have been found so far.
The ferocious animals that existed at the same time as them, in fact, there are mammoths, long-haired rhinos, bears and tundra wolves, what they have in common with cave lions is that the fur is more similar, they are thick and long, which is probably to resist the very cold climate in these areas, and the living cave lion, its body shape is actually very similar to the modern African lion, you can imagine.
As for the reason for the extinction of the cave lion, it is very likely that the problem facing human beings today is climate change, although there may not have been an artificial factor in that period, but not only is there a competitive relationship between animals, but the Earth's climate is also in a state of flux. Of course, this is not the end, scientists will also perform DNA sequencing on female cave lions later, then we can have more understanding of the evolutionary history of cave lions, which is the only way for everyone to understand extinct creatures.