The Preliminary Analysis of Cave Lion Cubs Panthera spelaea (Goldfuss, 1810) from the Permafrost of Siberia

1. Introduction

The Pleistocene Siberian Arctic zone was replete with large mammals and is astonishingly different from the Arctic zone of the present day. Along with mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius), woolly rhinoceros (Coelodonta antiquitatis), bison (Bison priscus), and saiga (Saiga tatarica), lived the cave lion (Panthera spelaea), a close relative of contemporary Afro-Asiatic lion P. leo L. It was on top of the trophic pyramid of the land polar ecosystem, being a part of the large Pleistocene carnivore guild alongside wolf Canis lupus L., wolverine Gulo gulo L. and brown bear Ursus arctos L. It is still unknown exactly how cave lions adapted to life in the harsh conditions of the high latitudes with their rapid season periodicity, strong winds, and cold and long winters with associated continuous nights.

Figure 1. The locations of the cave lion cubs finds: on the Uyandina River (indicated by a red triangle) and on the Semyuelyakh River (indicated by a red asterisk).

2. Place of the Find and Geological Age

3. Material and Methods

In November 2018, the frozen remains of Boris were delivered to Yakutsk and microbiologically tested in the sanitary-epidemiological station of Yakutsk for possible carriage of infectious diseases (including foot and mouth disease, anthrax, brucellosis, and rinderpest), all of which yielded negative results. The frozen remains of Sparta were delivered to Yakutsk in January 2019 and were also tested for infectious diseases; they also yielded negative results. The results of the present paper are based on the studies of the exterior morphology of the cave lion cubs’ mummies conducted in November 2018 and May 2019, as well as genetic-based sex determination.

4. Results

5. Discussion

If we assume that cave lions were similar to contemporary Panthera species (lion, tiger, leopard) in the way in which their cubs were brought up with male lions not participating in caring for the young, they would have been exposed to danger from other predators every time the mother went away to hunt. In the case of their mother’s death, the cubs would likely die from hunger. The harsh living conditions for large cats in high latitudes also have to be taken into account.

It is possible that cave lions were in a similar situation. We do not know when Sparta and Boris were born, but probably in summer (or autumn) time, and they most likely died when they were about 1 to 2 months old, in their den under the snow or the earth. This would explain why predators and scavengers did not find their bodies, and that is why we do not see any damage on the mummies that could have been inflicted by them. Maybe the cubs were buried under the ground following a landslide, and their bodies were deformed by the earth’s mass and permafrost features and froze quickly to become mummies.

6. Conclusions

The preliminary examination of the cubs’ mummies shows that the colour of the hair coat was changing from the juvenile yellowish-brown shade to a more ‘adult’ one, light grey to brown, at some point between 1–2 weeks and 1–2 months. Adult lions probably had light grey hair, well adapted to the Siberian Arctic, which is snow covered for two-thirds of the year.

We noted similarities between examined lion cubs P. spelaea and the contemporary lion cubs: their ears are light in the front but dark in the back, and they do not have a dark tuft on the end of their tail when they are born, but it is instead developed in their first few months. At the same time, cave lion cubs did not have vivid dark spots on their bodies and limbs, typical for P. leo cubs.

There is no sign of predators or scavengers damaging the fossil cave lions, but computed tomography showed skull damages, ribs dislocation, and other distortions in their skeletons that could be caused by the earth’s mass pressure due to the landslide and the following deformation due to the permafrost features.

Author Contributions

Organisation of research in Yakutsk, A.V.P.; preparing frozen mummies for research, I.S.P. and V.V.P.; external morphology studies, G.G.B., V.V.P., A.V.P., I.S.P. and A.N.T.; computed tomography studies, N.S. with the participation of V.V.P. and A.N.T.; genetic sex determination, L.D. and D.W.G.S.; discussion of images of cave lions in the caves of France, P.F.; writing—original draft preparation, G.G.B., V.V.P., G.F.B., P.F., D.W.G.S. and A.N.T.; discussion and writing—review and editing, all authors. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

Not applicable.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Anna A. Tikhonova, Saint-Petersburg, Russia, for the translation of the manuscript from Russian into English and to David W.G. Stanton for improving English language of the manuscript. Acknowledgements are addressed to the French Ministry of Culture and to the scientific team of Chauvet cave (Carole Fritz, Gilles Tosello).

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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