European+Cave+Lion+-+Calvin+Chan

__**Ancient Animal - Panthera Leo Spelaea. The European Cave Lion**__
Modern animal - Snow Leopard Future Animal - The Silver Leopard By Calvin Chan

The European cave lion (Panthera Leo Spelaea), as the name suggests lives within the caves of Europe but they were not only found within Europe, they existed all over Europe and Asia, Eurasia. These fascinating beasts are believed to live 370,000­­­ to 10,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch. They have been estimated to weigh 400kg and 3.5 m long, they were the prime predator in their time, but times change had become extinct.


 * __Classification:__**


 * Kingdom - Animalia **
 * Phylum - Chordata **
 * Class - Mammalia **
 * Order - Carnivora **
 * Family- Felidae **
 * Genus - Panthera **
 * Species - Leo **
 * Subspecies - spelaea **

__**Habitat**__ The European cave lion as the name suggests is located within europe but not only in europe, they went into areas of China, Russia and also led down to Africa, this could be a reason of how the Lions ended up in Africa or how the snow leopard ended up within Central Asia ( refer to Fig 1). The Cave lion preffered to live in flat plainlands but was only given the name cave lion because many of their fossils were found within caves, explanaitons for this is that they may have hunted migration cave bears or been dragged into the caves and were fed on by the Hyenas.



__**Terrain**__ The Cave lion could tolerate many different types of terrain but its preference if it were available was to live in grasslands or Conifer forrests. Due to it being the Wurm ice ige, it was very cold and snowy and the vegetation within the area would be tundra. (Ref Fig 3)

__**Atmosphere**__ The atmosphere would be sub polar with many warming and cooling periods but mainly cooling as it was undergoing an ice age. The temperature the Cave lions had to endure ranged from -10 C to - 30 C, which is extremely cold and to make it worse during the cooling periods there would be many snow storms.

__**Prey/Predators**__ The prey of the cave lion included horses, dear, boars, bison and if the situation was right the wooly mammoths or [|cave bears](Ref fig 2) as it is a carnivore. It would only ever hunt a wooly mammoth if it was one that had been isolated from ther herd and even then it would take several lions to take it down. The only times a Cave lion would try to take down a bear who is 100kg heavier than the lion, is when the bear is hibernating and evidence from fossils have shown of cave bear fossils, the cave lion claw marks on their skulls. The predators of the Cave lion that have been assumed to hunt these animals to exinction were humans but these cave lions also had [|Cave Hyena's] as another predator.

Much like its modern day ancestor the snow leopard, it uses scents. Many animals use scent to mark there territory but the reason the European cave lion did it was to inform other wild cats that come across the area that has been marked, that this was the territory of a specific pride and if they hunted within the area there may have been a conflict, such as a fight.The females spray and mark their territory to inform passing males on whether to mate or not and this is evident in the modern animal, the Snow leopard. The Cave Lion would mark the territory by wither rubbing itself on the terrain, spraying its urine or smearing its faeces on the borders of its area. This trait has been passed and is a behavioural trait of all the big cats because it is one of the traits that are essential for survival or natural selection would have killed off the gene**.**
 * __Adaptions__**
 * Behavioural Adaptions – Use of Scent**

Environmental pressure - The environmental pressure is over population of a single area, which is why this behavioural trait was adapted, so they would not over populate and over hunt the prey in a single area.

The reason the European cave lion to live in prides is for many reasons but they all lead to surviving. For the animal to evolve, it prefers living in prides because it is easier to find a mate within the group than having to travel large distances to find mates. It is easier to find and kill its prey if the Cave Lion is in a group and they can share the captured prey in order to make it easier for the group and also defending the prey from the scavengers. By living in prides, it is safer for all the animals within the pack, it is safety in numbers as there are more eyes watching out for predators such as the European Hyena. If the Cave Lion never lived in prides, it would have been so much harder to pass of its genes and they would be hunted of and killed its predators.
 * Behavioural adaption – Living in prides (ref fig. 5)**

Environmental pressure - The environement had many predators such as the hyena, they avoided becoming the prey by banding together to be a pride and look out for each other.


 * Structural Adaptions – Tiger like stripes**

Whenever an animal has grown stripes, changes colours or spots, the main reason is to camouflage and this Is the same as the cave lion. It is assumed from ancient cave paintings by early humans that they had stripes (Ref Fig 5). The reason that the cave lion had stripes Is in order to hunt its prey without being detected as the stripes would allow it to blend with the terrain and vegetation. This characteristic of camouflage of fur has been passed on to many of its modern day ancestors such as the snow leopard, but due to evolution, the stripes have changed to dark rosette spots to adapt with the environment.

Environmental pressure - The environment had a huge impact on the stripes on the fur, as the fur aided in the Cave Lions hunting becuase it helped them camoflauge with the terrain in order to prowl and hunt its prey.


 * Structural Attributes – 5 – 10 % bigger than modern lions (Ref Fig 6)**

In order for the Cave Lion to be the main predator of its time period, was the largest cat that ever lived. The Cave lion was 5 – 10% bigger than its modern day ancestor, the lion. It had to be a large animal in order to be able to compete and defend itself from other animals, such as the hyena or the cave bear. It also had to be large for it to be able to hunt its prey, mammoth, deer, bison and in rare cases the cave bear. It had to adapt to this size in order to survive and shrunk due when larger animals couldnt sustain its size and then turned into its common ancestors today, such as the lion or snow leopard.

Environmental pressure - It had to grow larger because other animals during that time period and within the environment were larger, so in order to be able to be at the top of the food chain it had to be big.


 * Structural Attributes – fur on their body and manes for males**

The rough thick fur on the body of the cave lion helps the cave lion survive its harsh cold environment but not much is known about the length of the fur because they can only gauge this information from the climate they lived in. The severe temperatures that the fur allowed the cave lion to live in ranged from -10 Co to – 30 Co. The males also had manes because it made the lions look larger and stronger, it also protected the lion during fights, and it would soften the blow if any animal tried to attack the neck. The Mane is an easy way for lions to distinct from whether the lion is a male of female.

Environmental pressure - The environemtnal pressure that led to the growing of its thick fur is because it lived in sub polar climates. In order to be able to function at these cold environment they had to grow the thick fur.

__**Pressure that led to Extinction**__

The main pressure that lead to the extinction of this speceies is the predators and the climat. It is assumed by scientest that the early Human species hunted these species to extinction and combined with the lack of prey due to the ice age killing many of them they couldn't sustian the amount of nutrients so they had to go for riskier prey such as mammoths and Cave Bears, which some of them died to try and hunt. As there was a reduced amount of prey and also a new predator, the humans, they were vulnerable because they had no source of food and they could easily be hunted by the humans.

__**Bibliography**__

Cave Lion | Information about different Lions. No Author. Accessed 24 June, 2011 Retrieved From. http://www.lionslion.com/Different-Lions/Cave-Lion.html The European Cave Lion was the Largest cat that ever lived.Author. Face Kitty. Accessed 24 June, 2011 Retrieved on http://www.facekitty.com/2008/04/the-european-cave-lion-was-the.html Cave Lion - Characteristics, Behaviour and habitat of the cave lion, Panthera Leo Spelaea. Author Bob Strauss. Accessed 25 June, 2011. Retrieved from http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/mesozoicmammals/p/Cave-Lion-Panthera-Leo-Spelaeus.htm