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AnonymousLlama428 — Cave conflict
Published: 2016-04-20 23:56:34 +0000 UTC; Views: 1838; Favourites: 50; Downloads: 4
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Description
General Late Pleistocene model for the maximum of cave use and conflicts between all top predators, and cave bears with skull examples of the Zoolithen Cave (Upper Franconia) which model is also based on the Sophie’s Cave situation. Skull damage as a result of predator and cave bear fights.Screenshot from the below paper:
www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=…
Image used by me here:
www.quora.com/What-are-the-mos…
During the ice age, a species of large, herbivorous bear known as the Cave bear inhabited Europe. As suggested by the name, cave bears hibernated in caves during the winter, in the duration of which, some may have died due to starvation. But that was the least of their worries. Caves were a favorite place for giant Cave hyena packs to hide and devour kills, bad news for hibernating bears. Add to that the fact that during winter, Eurasian cave lions sought after sleeping cave bears and cubs when Reindeer were scarce, and we end up with a potential bloodbath.
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Comments: 70
Oh, wait, they were diagonal.
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No idea; I'll have to read the paper again......
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"Giant cave hyena" reminds me of one of Africa's cryptid legends...which is basically just a giant bloodthirsty hyena. It would be cool if there was really something to it, but I highly doubt it. There'd probably be a bunch of big fuckin messes like the one in this diagram.
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I believe the creature you are referring to is the Nandi Bear? I could be wrong, but that cryptid is often described as hyena-like in appearance.
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Yay, I think they just saw a hyena and exaggerated.
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Lol probably. Or maybe it was an abnormally large one.
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Could be larger than normal, but more likely they only saw a normal hyena and thought it was something else, as the brain likes to make us do.
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Not a lot, I should think, check down below.
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That cave would be the worst place ever for an Irish elk (or a hominid) to end up in.
Also: if we reintroduce lions, wolves and hyenas to the area, and bring back cave bears (there is some good evidence it was hevaily affected by human activity), would it be wise for introduce all of them to this same cave?
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There is some evidence for neanderthal and early modern humans inhabiting these caves at different times. No live ungulates; hyenas were known to transport food into the cave however, including Irish elk.
Wolves are already present, and never became extinct. The extinction of cave lions can be attributed to their decline in genetic diversity, the extinction of cave bears, extirpation of reindeer in Europe, and out-competition from wolves. Hyenas were unable to survive around the LGM, as they lacked any adaptations to the colder environment, and cave bears were over-hunted by lions hyenas, leopards and wolves, much more so than humans, and the climate created a lack of vegetation to feed on.
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Okay, let's skip the hyenas then.
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Also, we have no way of cloning cave bears, and brown bears have shifted in their isotopic bone content since their extinction, from being largely carnivorous due to competition from cave bears, to becoming more of an omnivore in their absence. The same is true for cave lions, as we have yet to find intact DNA from their nuclei. African lions may make a substitute, but they will need to adapt to the climate, and they are gregarious unlike their solitary relatives, which has ecological implications. Modern Eurasian wolves do not descend from those present in the Pleistocene, that ecomorph became extinct with the megafauna.
Also, the Zoolithen Cave is a site of great paleontological and geological importance, as it, alongside other cave sites tells us a great deal about the ethology and ecology of Pleistocene carnivorans. To set lions, bears, hyenas, wolves, leopards, wolverines and ungulates into the cave is madness and grossly unethical.
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Wow.....that's way then encountering a bunch of Zubats in a cave
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I had to google the term. Yes, it is.
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You don't play Pokémon?
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Oh Lord someone needs a dose of Pokémon.....what was your childhood like then?.....
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I do remember watching some Pokemon, but not in great quantities...
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Yeah I used to watch a ton of the Pokémon anime when I was younger
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There are people who always overrate the lions,saying they would kill anything.I have seen comments about cave lions could kill cave bears and someone posted some picture of fossil evidence..etc etc... First of all,its not clear if they were full grown adult bears,then most importantly the bears that the lions killed were hibernating. The adult cave bear or kodiak bear or polar bear would beat any large lion or tiger.
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Ah, yes. There will always be a painful group of 12 year old fanboys wherever you go.
It would seem that individual bears had their differences in size. According to Wikipedia, 90% of Cave bear fossils in museums are identified as boars, because sows were thought to be "dwarves", as they were so small in comparison.
That said, even cave sows were on par in size to brown ones, at up to 280kg. Add to that the fact that they were cornered in caves and had cubs to protect, they would not go down easily. Still, cave lions were formidable predators, and no sane cave bear or hyena would want one in their cave, as indicated by injured bones from all parties. A hate triangle, if you ask me.
If pressed, a cave bear, while a herbivore, would usually be able to overpower a cave lion, as indicated by the injured bones.
However, the outside climate which caused a shortage of available food and many bears to starve in their sleep didn't help the hunting by cave lions and hyenas.
Bears killed would have decreased the birth rate, especially the cubs, and the Heinrich events taking place during their final years did the poor bears in.
Just read the paper to learn more.
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"Ah, yes. There will always be a painful group of 12 year old fanboys wherever you go."
*sigh* Indeed.
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Yes, it is an unfortunate truth, *cough cough animal videos*
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Thanks!
It's not mine, though.
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Oh, I thought you made this. I can definitely see you making a cool illustration like this
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Thanks!
Yeah, according to the paper, the graphics are by PaleoLogic, apparently affiliated with Cajus Diedrich, the German scientist behind the paper whose only video footage found was as the main scientist in a German documentary from which I could not understand crap.
www.paleologic.eu/pleistocen.p…
In other news, I'm thankful to Dr.Mike Taylor for telling me about sci-hub, basically the piratebay of scientific papers. Just adjusting the URL of an abstract by adding their name will allow you access to any paper. I've been having a paper fetish since yesterday.
Reading far too much on Pleistocene megafauna (cave lions cough cough), and have a newfound respect and awe for hyenas, because I've been able to read about how by studying the isotopes in the bones of European Pleistocene fauna, we can figure out their diets. To my surprise, when isotopic values of respective animals were plotted out onto graphs, cave lions showed very little overlap with hyenas, as a result of competitive exclusion, opting for a cave bear, deer and reindeer-heavy diet where hyenas preyed on what we would think of as cave lion prey - horse, woolly rhino and bison. Cave lions weren't outclassing the hyenas.
Hervé Bocherens stated in one of the papers that:
"This supports further the hypothesis of a competitive displacement of cave lions by cave hyenas. In combination with evidence for fights between cave hyenas and cave lions and that cave hyenas sometimes consumed carcasses of lions during the Late Pleistocene (e.g., Diedrich, 2008, 2009a), this indicates that lions were at a disadvantage in the competition with hyenas. This could be linked to the solitary habits of cave lions in contrast with the clan behaviour of cave hyenas. This is in contrast with modern spotted hyenas and lions in Africa, where both predator species exhibit a large overlap in the prey choice (Hayward, 2006). Modern lions, even if they are smaller than the Pleistocene ones, may resist better the competition with spotted hyenas thanks to their collective behaviour."
Also in the paper:
"cave hyenas were more active predators than modern ones"
I knew that hyenas were more than the vilified characters from The Lion King, but I didn't know they were such formidable predators as to force cave lions into specialism. They're misunderstood and need a story. Imma do some hyenas come summer.
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"I knew that hyenas were more than the vilified characters from The Lion King, but I didn't know they were such formidable predators as to force cave lions into specialism. They're misunderstood and need a story. Imma do some hyenas come summer."
I agree!!!
(BTW: Thanks for all of the information)
Sometimes, your comments and your notions are too amazing for replies
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No problem and thanks!
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I'm fascinated by finds like this!Thank you for sharing
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This is a one full (very full) cave !
May I ask that the wolves are still alive or abondened the cave; and the hyenas & bears made any attacks to each other after eliminating their common enemy ?
Great work btw
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It is!
I haven't had the time to read the whole paper (exams and all are going on right now), but I don't believe the cave is used by wolves anymore, or how often they occupied.
This varies from cave to cave. For example, some hyena caves lacked bears, but still attracted lions due to the kills, while others had both bears and hyenas, but no lions, and others still attracted all 3 at various times. I don't have much of an idea about the wolves.
I can tell you that Hyenas did consume cave bears, as indicated by tooth marks on bones, either by killing them in their sleep, assaulting conscious bears, or eating those who starved.
Just read the paper. I haven't the time right now, but you might. It might be a long-ish read, but if you're interested in this kinda stuff, I think you should find it worthwhile.
Oh, it's not my work, it's a diagram taken from the paper.
Link's in the doobly-doo.
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Understood ! Lucky wolves they were ! 
Much luckier than Lions that is
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Ah, if I remember correctly, wolves used caves like this to raise pups, and would on occasion scavenge. These "Cave wolves" are given the provisional subspecies name Canis lupus spelaeus. This particular diagram is based off of the Zoolithen cave in Germany, but it doesn't mention the leopards that also attempted to hunt bears.
Some weren't so lucky, we do have the chewed remains of wolf in cave hyena dens, which were probably killed by them, perhaps they tried to scavenge or steal food, or they were just unlucky trespassers...
These wolves were larger than modern ones, but they still pale in comparison to hyenas.
I don't have time to read over the paper again, but unlike most papers, it's free and open access, under the Creative Commons Attribution License, meaning that I'm allowed to upload this as long as I give credit to Dr. Diedrich. If you have the time, you can read it yourself; it may seem dry, but if you're interested, it'll be worth it.
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Understood thanks for the information
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It's pretty amazing that there were that many species reliant on these caves.
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I should think it boiled down to the bears, and the hyena kills that attracted those lions. Not sure about the wolves, but I might after reading the whole paper.
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Now that's some interesting stuff going on there.
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It is!
I wouldn't like to be in there.......
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Me neither.
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Imagine having to sleep there with your loved ones...
With nothing but you bear hands.
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