Panthera spelaea

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Panthera spelaea, commonly known as the cave lion or in some scientific literature, the steppe lion, is an extinct species of Panthera that inhabited Eurasia and northwestern North America during the Pleistocene. Ancient DNA analyses indicate that, although closely related to the modern lion (Panthera leo), it was a genetically distinct species. Estimates place the divergence between the two lineages at approximately 500,000 to 1 million years ago. The earliest fossils of the P. spelaea lineage (either regarded as the separate species Panthera fossilis or the subspecies P. spelaea fossilis) in Eurasia date to around 700,000 years ago (with possible late Early Pleistocene records). It is closely related and probably ancestral to the American lion (Panthera atrox). The species ranged from Western Europe to eastern Beringia in North America, and was a prominent member of the mammoth steppe fauna, and an important apex predator across its range along with other large carnivores like cave hyenas...

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