AA tresnak

On Mount Arno they find the skeleton of a cave lion

The skeleton of a cave lion is found on Mount Arno in Mendaro. It is the only complete skeleton of an immature cave lion found in the Iberian Peninsula.

AA tresnak

in March 2023, members of the Burumendi Speleology Group of Mutriku discovered a new gallery in the cave of Ormola Bide Ondoan. During the exploration, the skeleton of a cave lion was discovered and reported to the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa, the Aranzadi Science Society and the University of the Basque Country.

“It is a Late Pleistocene cave lion that died about 31,500 years ago.”

In total, eighteen people have participated in the discovery: Paleontologists Asier Gómez Olivencia and Mónica Villalba de Alvarado, archaeologist Jexus Tapia, photometry expert Euken Alonso and speleologists Bittor Abendaño and Pedro Intxaurraga of the Burumendi Speleology Group.

Asier Gómez Olivencia points out that the skeleton "informs us about the variability of this species. On the one hand, it will help to better understand the growth process. On the other hand, the body size of this species has been decreasing for thousands of years until it disappeared, a change that we hope will be better understood."

Analyzing the overall size of the fossil, the researchers conclude that it belongs to a subspecies of cavernous lions of the Late Pleistocene: Panthera spelaea spelaea. This conclusion is consistent with radiocarbon dating, which indicates that the animal died about 31,500 years ago. The width of the fangs suggests that he was male and it has been estimated that he died at 2 or 3 years old. The skeleton is the first complete skeleton of an immature cave lion found in the Iberian Peninsula.

Cave lions inhabited Eurasian ecosystems for nearly a million years, until they disappeared between 14,000 and 12,000 years ago. Although the name suggests it, they did not live in caves, although most of their fossil remains have been found in karstic environments. These animals shared ecosystems with different species of hominids and are represented in rock art. It is not a common species in the fossil record, since they were located at the top of the trophic chain and therefore were relatively few animals.

The researchers say they will continue to study the footprints. On the one hand, all the metric data collected will be compared with the fossil record of European cave lions. On the other hand, the growth pattern of this species will continue to be studied in depth, and DNA samples have also been collected in collaboration with a team from the University of Vienna.