Cave lions and their larger relatives, American lions, first entered North America during the last ice age, toward the end of the Pleistocene. The maximum size of a male American lion was about 420 kilograms, she says, noting that modern lions only get up to 270 kilograms. The first lions to amble into North America around 165,000 years ago were a lineage of cave lions. For some reason, these cave lions stayed above the ice sheets, remaining separate from American lions that had already dispersed south. Lions reappeared in eastern Beringia’s fossil record about 22,000 years ago when the final wave of cave lions arrived from Asia.

Source: The North Africa Journal March 14, 2023 00:08 UTC