Research overview: the timing and causes of cave lion extinction

This overview reviews evidence on when and why the cave lion disappeared, with the latest well-dated records indicating survival into the terminal Pleistocene before extinction roughly fourteen thousand years ago in much of its range. As a top predator of mammoth-steppe faunas, Panthera spelaea depended on large herbivore prey whose populations were reshaped by rapid climate change, vegetation turnover, and the spread of human hunters at the end of the last glaciation. The survey weighs these factors, examines how radiocarbon dating constrains the cave lion's last appearances across Eurasia and Beringia, and considers the role of declining prey and shrinking habitat. It situates the cave lion's extinction within the broader collapse of Ice Age megafauna and its associated large carnivores.