According to experts, the weight of the animal was about 600 kg, and its height reached up to one meter.
Russian scientists, together with colleagues from the Adelaide Institute of Australia, will study the samples of a giant cave lion found in the Perm Territory. This was reported about by Pavel Kosintsev, the senior researcher at the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"In one of the caves in the Perm Territory near Berezniki town we found samples of a giant cave lion's tooth, which is one and a half times larger than the tooth of an ordinary cave lion, and we will send the sample to the Adelaide Institute in Australia for further study to see if it belonged to a cave lion that was 1.5 times bigger than its relatives, or if we are dealing with another species,” – Mr. Kosintsev said at a press conference in the Ural Regional Information Center of TASS.
According to him, it will be possible to determine the age and sex of the animal with the assistance of research scientists.
"Now already we can tell about the approximate size of this cave lion: its weight was about 600 kg, and its height reached up to one meter," – Mr. Kosintsev said.
He added that a new cemetery of cave bears had been discovered by paleontologists in the area by the Chusa River. "It was destroyed by natural processes about 8-10 thousand years ago, and the entrance to the cave collapsed under the influence of water, and then it opened again, which explains why there are no other animal remains in the cave”, - he commented.
Earlier it was reported that during the field season of 2016, Ural scientists dug into the world's only cemetery of giant cave lions. The unique cemetery was discovered in the Imanay Cave of the national park Bashkiria in 2015. More than 500 remains of ancient lions, which were about 1.5 times larger than modern African lions, were unearthed in the cave.