page_title: American lion
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: American lion / Description
caption_attribution_description: العربية: رسم رقمي للأسد الأميركي بناءً على بنية هيكله العظمي وما يفترضه العلماء.Español: Reconstrucción gráfica del león americano basado en estructura ósea y textos paleontológicos English: Graphical reconstruction of Panthera leo atrox the "American lion" based on bony structure and paleontological texts
context_page_description: The American lion, also known as the "North American lion", or "American cave lion", is an extinct pantherine cat that lived in North America during the Pleistocene epoch and the early Holocene epoch, about 340,000 to 11,000 years ago.
  Its fossils have been excavated from Alaska to Mexico. Genetic analysis has shown that the American lion and the Late Pleistocene Eurasian cave lion are sister lineages.
  It was about 25% larger than the modern lion, making it one of the largest known felids.
context_section_description: The American lion is estimated to have measured 1.6 to 2.5 m (5 ft 3 in to 8 ft 2 in) from the tip of the nose to the base of the tail and stood 1.2 m (3.9 ft) at the shoulder. Thus, it was smaller than its contemporary competitor, the giant short-faced bear, which was the largest carnivoran of North America at the time, and larger than the saber-toothed cat, Smilodon fatalis, which may have weighed up to 280 kg (620 lb). In 2008, the American lion was estimated to weigh up to 420 kg (930 lb). A study in 2009 showed an average weight of 256 kg (564 lb) for males and 351 kg (774 lb) for the largest specimen analyzed. A study in 2012 estimated a range of 235–523 kg (518–1,153 pounds) for males and 175–365 kg (386–805 pounds) for females, which suggests that the lion was heavier than Smilodon.
  About 80 American lion individuals have been recovered from the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, so their morphology is well known. Their features strongly resemble those of modern lions, but they were considerably larger, similar to P. spelaea and the Pleistocene Natodomeri lion of eastern Africa.
  Preserved skin remains found with skeletal material thought by its describers to be from the American lion in caves in the Argentine Patagonia indicate that the animal was reddish in color. Cave paintings from El Ceibo in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina seem to confirm this, and reduce the possibility of confusion with fossil jaguars, as similar cave paintings accurately depict the jaguar as yellow in color.
caption: Reconstruction of an American lion
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