Last I blogged about the find of a lifetime in Siberia, two 10,000 year old cave lion cubs that were found frozen in the Siberian permafrost. At least one of them was found preserved largely intact, thus advancing our knowledge of the developmental stages of the cave lion by leaps and bounds, to wit:
“For instance, Uyan’s body [scientists have nicknamed the cubs’ remains], which was more intact than Dina’s, weighs about 6 lbs. (2.8 kilograms), which is about 4.6 lbs. (2.1 kg) heavier than a modern lion newborn, Potapova told Live Science. She added that because newborn lions don’t have any identifiable sex characteristics, it’s unclear whether Uyan and Dina were male or female.
“Uyan’s body is about the size of an adult house cat, approximately 17 inches (43 centimeters) long, Potapova said. At about 3 inches (7 cm) long, the cub’s tail is just about 23 percent of its body length, “which is significantly smaller than that in modern lions,” whose tails are about 60 percent of their body length, Potapova said.”
Read the entire article here:
http://www.livescience.com/56723-ancient-cave-lions-squished-to-death.html
