I saw 25% larger than current African lions. That would be less than 800 pounds.
” The presence of fully articulated adult cave lion skeletons, deep in cave bear dens, indicates that lions may have occasionally entered dens to prey on hibernating cave bears, with some dying in the attempt.[4]
These active carnivores [2] probably preyed upon the large herbivorous animals of their time, including horses, deer, reindeer, bison and even injured old or young mammoths. Some paintings of them in caves show several hunting together, which suggests the hunting strategy of contemporary lionesses.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera_leo_spelaea
“What makes this cat absolutely incredible was its size. With a length of 3.5 meters and an approximate full grown male weight of around 800 lbs, the European Cave Lion was a dominating species of Lion.”
http://www.facekitty.com/2008/04/the-european-cave-lion-was-the.html
Good short article here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/7974948.stm
What drove them to extinction? I’m guessing either SUVs or GWB...
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