Stanton, David W.G., Bergström, Anders, Heintzman, Peter D., van der Valk, Tom, Carmagnini, Alberto, Ersmark, Erik, Pawar, Harvinder, Sandoval-Velasco, Marcela, Androsov, Semyon, Fedorov, Sergey, Kuhlwilm, Martin, Nagel, Doris, Plotnikov, Valeri, Protopopov, Albert, Shapiro, Beth, Barnett, Ross, Sinding, Mikkel-Holger S., Marques-Bonet, Tomas, Yamaguchi, Nobuyuki, Gilbert, M. Thomas P., Götherström, Anders, Skoglund, Pontus, Frantz, Laurent and Dalén, Love
2026.
Paleogenomes reveal the evolutionary relationship between modern and cave lions.
Cell
189
(14)
, pp. 4425-4436.
10.1016/j.cell.2026.05.007
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Abstract
The Eurasian cave lion was abundant across the Northern Hemisphere before the Late Pleistocene mega faunal extinctions. However, the extent of the distinction between cave and modern lions and their adaptive differences have remained unclear. Using 12 cave lion genomes spanning more than 100,000 years, we show that modern and cave lions were distinct evolutionary lineages with separate demographic histories and unique non-synonymous variants. We also identify evidence of ancient gene flow between them, with the best modern lion proxy for this ancestry being an extinct Southwest Asian population. This admixture corre lates with global ice extent, with 3.2%–4.4% modern lion ancestry detected in a ∼20,000-year-old cave lion from Central East Asia. These findings provide insight into the evolutionary history of the cave lion, once one of the Northern Hemisphere’s most ecologically impactful megafaunal species.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Biosciences |
| Publisher: | Elsevier |
| ISSN: | 0092-8674 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 17 June 2026 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 6 May 2026 |
| Last Modified: | 04 Aug 2026 13:26 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187608 |
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