Research overview: body size and sexual dimorphism in the cave lion

This overview surveys what skeletal evidence reveals about the body size of the cave lion and the degree of size difference between the sexes. Panthera spelaea was a large cat, generally exceeding the modern lion in size, with the earlier Panthera fossilis forms larger still. The survey reviews how researchers estimate cave lion mass from limb and skull dimensions, the evidence for sexual size dimorphism and what it might imply about social organization, and how body size changed through time from the Middle to Late Pleistocene. It discusses comparisons with the American lion and modern lions, the influence of cold-climate adaptation on size, and how size data feed into reconstructions of the cave lion's prey range, energetics, and ecological dominance in Ice Age faunas.