Posted on 05/23/2011 5:23:23 PM PDT by decimon
Sleeping on its bed, a giant cave bear opens one eye, alert to any intruder.
It stands, lifting its massive 400kg frame and bares its teeth.
In front of it is an equally sized cave lion; a giant predatory cat, and the cave bear's mortal enemy.
Only one will survive, while the bones of the fallen will litter the cave floor for millennia.
New evidence reveals how such titanic struggles likely took place in caves across central Europe in the Upper Pleistocene epoch, which ended around 11,500 years ago.
While excavating caves in Germany and Romania, scientists have unearthed the bones of large numbers of cave bears, a now extinct species that stood bigger than today's grizzly bears.
The bears' bones, claw marks they left in the caves in which they lived, and even the beds they slept on, paint the best picture yet of how these magnificent creatures once lived.
But more than that, researchers have also uncovered the petrified bones of the cave bear's foe, the Pleistocene cave lion.
More than 25% bigger than today's African lions, the cave lion was itself an impressive predator, one that may have specialised in hunting cave bears for food.
Details of the two massive animals' remarkable battles have been released by palaeontologist Dr Cajus Diedrich of PaleoLogic, based in Halle, Germany.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
...Our liger, Hercules, was a result of an accident rather than deliberate breeding or artificial insemination. Eating about 20 pounds of meat every day, he stands at over 11 feet tall and weighs more than 900 lbs."
http://www.jungleisland.com/about_mammals.php
Nice pussy?
That’s just DAYUM !!!
That’s some “accident” !
Arctodus simus, now there's and animal for all those liberals who think that machine guns aren't hunting tools.
In front of it is an equally sized cave lion; a giant predatory cat, and the cave bear’s mortal enemy.
Only one will survive, while the bones of the fallen will litter the cave floor for millennia.
Er, uhm, well no. Not exactly.
See, “neither” of these two huge impressive beasts will survive. Instead, a tender, thin-skinned, un-clawed, tiny-toothed, naked tiny mammal that can't even feed itself until age 10 survived, and is still doing quire well actually. Funny that a 2-year old baby can kill a giant cave bear.
When that cave bear faces an angry mommy.
quire: one twentieth of a ream
Word of the day. ;-)
I've had bosses that were quire boys. They liked to ream in increments.
Yeah, the African lion is the largest of the African cats I believe, but the tiger is the largest of the (non-extinct) cats, and the saber-tooth was a relative. One of the probable relatives of the cave lion (if not the same thing, but separated by the Bering Strait a loooong time ago) is the north American “panther” (such as the Florida Panther, which is a puma). But hey, a lot I know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Lion
[snip] The American lion (Panthera atrox) also known as the North American lion or American cave lion, is an extinct feline of the family Felidae, endemic to North America during the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 mya to 11,000 years ago), existing for approximately 1.79 million years. While it was once considered a subspecies of lion closely related to the Eurasian cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea), later study showed that it was not in fact a true lion and can not be assigned to any modern species of cat. [/snip]
I should point out that the “later study” was morphological, not via DNA at all.
http://www.carnivoreconservation.org/portal/p_detail.php?recordid=15010
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1096-0031.2008.00226.x/full
http://www.googlesyndicatedsearch.com/u/TreeofLife?q=Felidae%0D%0A%95+&sa=Google+the+Tree+of+Life
Proailurus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proailurus
Machairodontinae
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machairodontinae
Yes, it’s funny that all those animals are gone, while I’m still here, reproducing all over the landscape, “Honey, there’s a bug in the kitchen. If you want supper, would you find it another home?”
I’ll bear with your story if you’re not lion.
We ocelot of our fellow FReepers when we get started like this.
Pure envy.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
funny.
Nah. That's the forerunner to the dik-dik - don'cha know! ;^)
Yeah but the cave Lions and cave Bears got their butts kicked by the cave Packers.
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