Category Archives: American Lion

G(e)nomic Wisdom

When I first started doing ancient DNA way back in two thousand and [polite cough], every base pair was a win. Nature papers were published with less sequence than you’d now expect a fresher to produce in their first lab … Continue reading

Posted in American Lion, Cave Lion, Cheetah, DNA, European Jaguar, Leopard, Lynx, Sabre tooth Cat | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments

The Evolutionary History of Extinct and Living Lions

I’m fairly obsessed with cave lions. If one were to open up my head and look at my brain’s RAM it would be something like 70% facts about extinct species of cat, 20% stuff that my wife and kids tell … Continue reading

Posted in American Lion, Cave Lion, DNA, Homo sapiens | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Stuck in time

It is mid-November, and beads of sweat form on my forehead. Coalescence is inevitable. And it happens quickly; small beads merged into one humongous droplet, and it begins to meander its way down my nose, and there it dangles,  stubbornly … Continue reading

Posted in American Lion, Camelops, Horse, Mastodon, Sabre tooth Cat | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Giant Sloths & Sabertooth Cats

Giant Sloths and Sabertooth Cats: Extinct Mammals and the Archaeology of the Ice Age Great Basin By Donald K Grayson   If there is one thing I enjoy doing in my downtime, it’s reading about Pleistocene megafauna. As well as … Continue reading

Posted in American Lion, Antilocapra americana peninsularis, Bison, Brown Bear, Camelops, Cave Lion, Cheetah, Clovis hunters, Columbian Mammoth, Extinction, Giant Beaver, Giant Ground Sloth, Glyptodon, Gompothere, Ground Sloth, Horse, Mastodon, Peccary, Pronghorn, Sabre tooth Cat, Short Faced Bear, Teratorns, Woolly Mammoth | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Just like the weather

North America was a very different place during the Pleistocene. There were no skyscrapers, no highways, no concrete structures at all. Instead the landscape was wild, with grasses and white spruce forests dominating. This rich environment was filled with incredible creatures, including, … Continue reading

Posted in American Lion, Short Faced Bear | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Joseph Leidy’s atrocious baby

  Talk about the American lion today and most people will think you mean the cougar (Puma concolor), a beautiful, lithe predator sadly extinct from most of the Eastern United States, but still doing well in the west, and in … Continue reading

Posted in American Lion | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments