🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

This study used ancient and modern DNA to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships and population history of lions, including the extinct American lion and Eurasian cave lion. The genetic data resol…

Ross Barnett, Beth Shapiro, Ian Barnes, Simon Y. W. Ho, Joachim Burger, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, et al. · Molecular Ecology · 2009

This work measured carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes in bone collagen from Rancho La Brea mammals, including the predators Smilodon and Panthera atrox alongside their herbivore prey. The isotopic si…

Joan Brenner Coltrain, John M. Harris, Thure E. Cerling, James R. Ehleringer, et al. · Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology · 2004

This overview describes Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming, a deep sinkhole that acted as a pitfall for Pleistocene animals and accumulated a rich fossil assemblage including the American lion, the cheetah-…

This overview surveys the disappearance of numerous large cats, including Smilodon, Homotherium, the American lion, the cave lion, and Miracinonyx, as part of the broader late Quaternary megafaunal ex…

This overview examines how body size influenced which carnivores survived the end-Pleistocene extinctions and which, like the great cats, did not. Large predators tend to have smaller populations, low…

This overview examines the body size of Panthera atrox, frequently cited as one of the largest cats ever to have lived. Reconstructions based on its robust skeleton suggest it exceeded the modern Afri…

This overview surveys the long-running debate over whether climate change, human activity, or a combination of both drove sabertooths and other big cats to extinction at the end of the Pleistocene. Pr…

This overview surveys the distribution of the American lion across Pleistocene North America, where its fossils are known largely from areas south of the great continental ice sheets, extending into p…

This overview surveys what stable isotope and dental studies reveal about the diet of Panthera atrox. By analysing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of American lions alongside contempor…

This overview examines how stable isotope studies reveal the way coexisting Ice Age predators divided up prey and habitat. By comparing carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen of species such…

This overview examines the remarkable dispersal history of the lion lineage, which spread from an African and Eurasian heartland across the Northern Hemisphere during the Pleistocene. Cave lions, Pant…

This overview reviews the quantitative methods palaeontologists use to estimate the body mass of extinct cats such as Smilodon, Homotherium, and Panthera atrox. Because soft tissue is not preserved, r…

This overview surveys the recovery and analysis of complete mitochondrial genomes from cave lion fossils, which have helped pin down the position of Panthera spelaea within the lion radiation. Mitogen…

This overview examines how radiocarbon dating is applied to the bones of late Pleistocene cats to reconstruct their chronologies and last appearances. Directly dating individual fossils of Smilodon, c…

This overview surveys efforts to reconstruct how Panthera atrox looked, including the contentious question of whether males bore a mane like modern African lions. Because the American lion descends fr…

This overview explains why the Rancho La Brea asphalt seeps preserve such an extraordinary concentration of sabertooths and other carnivores. Natural petroleum seeping to the surface forms sticky asph…

This overview examines the record of Panthera atrox at Rancho La Brea, where the American lion is far less common than the sabertooth Smilodon but is nonetheless represented by valuable cranial and po…

This overview examines the central role of the Bering land bridge in the history of cats, serving as a recurrent corridor for felid movement between Asia and North America. The survey reviews how lowe…

This overview examines the vast geographic range of the cave lion, which spread across northern Eurasia and into Beringia and parts of northwestern North America during the Pleistocene. This enormous…

This overview examines the long-running debate over what the American lion, Panthera atrox, actually was. Since its description from Pleistocene North America, researchers have variously regarded it a…

This overview examines the timing of extinction among the great carnivores of Rancho La Brea, including the sabertooth Smilodon fatalis and the American lion, whose latest dated remains cluster near t…

This study generated genome-scale data from ancient and modern lions, including the extinct cave lion, to reconstruct the deep evolutionary history of the lion lineage. The analyses confirmed that the…

Marc de Manuel, Ross Barnett, Marcela Sandoval-Velasco, Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, et al. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2020

This influential study quantified broken teeth among large carnivores from the Rancho La Brea asphalt deposits, including Smilodon fatalis, dire wolves, American lions, and coyotes. Tooth breakage rat…

Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Fritz Hertel · Science · 1993