The skull of an extinct Ice Age cave lion, believed to be about 20,000 to 30,000 years old, has been found in a nature preserve in the Siberian republic of Sakha, also known as Yakutia.
The "rare find," which still holds a canine tooth, two molars and parts of the upper jaw, is believed to have belonged to a female cave lion about the size of a modern Amur tiger, lead researcher Gennady Boeskorov said, Interfax reported.
Cave lions were large carnivorous mammals that lived at the time of mammoths and woolly rhinoceroses, Boeskorov said.
Single bones of cave lions have previously been found in northern and central Sakha districts, on islands in the Novosibirsk region, and in other parts of Siberia. The latest skull was found in the Ust-Buotama preserve.
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