Skull comparison - Image from the BBC
Imagine going on a safari and being faced with a giant lion prowling around. Well, if we had lived 13,000 years ago it would not be an unimaginable situation. Dr Ross Barnett, compared skulls of lions from different periods at the Oxford University’s Department of Zoology, and discovered that such super-sized lions did roam the plains of Britain and North America.
These humongous beings, which are around 25% bigger, hunted the already huge woolly mammoth and giant deer. They had long legs, which enabled them to sprint faster than modern lions and they lived in an icy environment like the tundra sharing space with animals like the saber tooth tiger and woolly rhinos. They are called the Pleistocene lions, named after the age they lived in. These lions faced a sudden mass extinction 13,000 years ago but their route to extinction is still a great mystery.
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The real feel of the past is brought alive by creative nature-writing, an esoteric form of fiction. If cave lions fascinate you, as they do me, then head straight out to the bookshop/library for the 'Clan of the Cave Bear' series by Jean M. Auel. The protagonist, an orphaned young Cro-Magnon girl is rescued and brought up by a clan of Neanderthals in ice-age Crimea. Fascinating stuff and like all nature writers, Auel has tried to make it as true to the state of knowledge as known at the time of publishing. But forget all that, its a smashing set of novels.
Lions are big enough as they are now!
Fred Smilek
Charlie Mack and Fred Smilek are childhood friends committed to saving Endangered Species. http://www.fredjsmilek.com
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