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Description
This is a part of the next episode of 'Battle Beyond Epochs', in which I will feature the three mega carnivores of eastern African origin, each representing respective epochs in which they thrived during the Cenozoic; namely Megistotherium osteothlastes from the early Miocene, Agriotherium africanus from the Pliocene and the Natodomeri lion from the middle Pleistocene.

This piece depicts the Natodomeri lion pride devouring a carcass of the giant African Baffalo, Pelorovis antiquus.

:Description:
Newly discovered in 2018, a partial big cat skull (labelled as KNM-ND 59673) from Natodomeri, Kenya is considered to have belonged to the previously unknown ancient subspecies of the true lion, Panthera leo.

Above all else, the most astounding about the discovery should be its great size. KNM-ND 59673 is larger than all available specimens of the Ice Age cave lion(Panthera spelaea) and also larger than all but two specimens of the American lion(Panthera atrox) that Werdelin et al.(2018) studied for both the basal skull length and the palate length.

The oldest fossil record of the true lion in Africa dates back to almost 2 million years ago and all known prehistoric African lion specimens except for KNM-ND 59673 fall within the size range of the modern counterpart. It is unlikely however, that KNM-ND 59673 could simply be an outlier from known lion populations in Africa : rather, according to Werdelin et al.(2018), it must represent previously unknown, distinct subspecies that was substantially larger than any modern population of P. leo.

The fact that KNM-ND 59673 is the only specimen we have of the Natodomeri lion, therefore most likely belonged to only an average sized individual of the particular subspecies, makes it even more remarkable that it could rival some of the largest American lions in size(at least so regarding the skull length).

Such a population of hyper carnivorous, hyper predacious big cat could only be possible because of much greater biomass of megafauna in the Middle and Late Pleistocene than at present : occurrence of abundant megafauna, such as the giant buffalo Pelorovis antiquus or the short necked giraffe Sivatherium sp. at this time may have led to the evolution of larger lions to exploit this resource more extensively than today.

Image and text by ©Jagroar

Description
This is a part of the next episode of 'Battle Beyond Epochs', in which I will feature the three mega carnivores of eastern African origin, each representing respective epochs in which they thrived during the Cenozoic; namely Megistotherium osteothlastes from the early Miocene, Agriotherium africanus from the Pliocene and the Natodomeri lion from the middle Pleistocene.

This piece depicts the Natodomeri lion pride devouring a carcass of the giant African Baffalo, Pelorovis antiquus.

:Description:
Newly discovered in 2018, a partial big cat skull (labelled as KNM-ND 59673) from Natodomeri, Kenya is considered to have belonged to the previously unknown ancient subspecies of the true lion, Panthera leo.

Above all else, the most astounding about the discovery should be its great size. KNM-ND 59673 is larger than all available specimens of the Ice Age cave lion(Panthera spelaea) and also larger than all but two specimens of the American lion(Panthera atrox) that Werdelin et al.(2018) studied for both the basal skull length and the palate length.

The oldest fossil record of the true lion in Africa dates back to almost 2 million years ago and all known prehistoric African lion specimens except for KNM-ND 59673 fall within the size range of the modern counterpart. It is unlikely however, that KNM-ND 59673 could simply be an outlier from known lion populations in Africa : rather, according to Werdelin et al.(2018), it must represent previously unknown, distinct subspecies that was substantially larger than any modern population of P. leo.

The fact that KNM-ND 59673 is the only specimen we have of the Natodomeri lion, therefore most likely belonged to only an average sized individual of the particular subspecies, makes it even more remarkable that it could rival some of the largest American lions in size(at least so regarding the skull length).

Such a population of hyper carnivorous, hyper predacious big cat could only be possible because of much greater biomass of megafauna in the Middle and Late Pleistocene than at present : occurrence of abundant megafauna, such as the giant buffalo Pelorovis antiquus or the short necked giraffe Sivatherium sp. at this time may have led to the evolution of larger lions to exploit this resource more extensively than today.

Image and text by ©Jagroar