 Cheetah fossils found in the lower beds of the Olduvai Gorge site in northern Tanzania date back to the Pleistocene. The extinct species of Acinonyx are older than the cheetah, with the oldest known from the late Pliocene; these fossils are about three million years old. These species include Acinonyx pardinensis (Pliocene epoch), notably larger than the modern cheetah, and A. intermedius (mid-Pleistocene period). While the range of A. intermedius stretched from Europe to China, A pardinensis spanned over Eurasia as well as eastern and southern Africa. A variety of larger cheetah believed to have existed in Europe fell to extinction around half a million years ago.
