Panthera leo sinhaleyus (Redirected from Sri Lanka lion)

Panthera leo sinhaleyus
Temporal range: Pleistocene
Scientific classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Pantherinae
Genus: Panthera
Species:
Subspecies:
P. l. sinhaleyus
Trinomial name
Panthera leo sinhaleyus

Panthera leo sinhaleyus is an extinct prehistoric subspecies of lion, excavated in Sri Lanka. It is believed to have become extinct prior to the arrival of humans c. 37,000 years BCE.

History and taxonomy

In 1938, the paleontologist Paulus Deraniyagala named a new prehistoric subspecies of lion, Panthera leo sinhaleyus, based on a single left lower carnassial (M1) tooth excavated from deposits in Kuruwita as the holotype and a damaged right lower canine tooth from the same location as a "metatype". It was further described, but named only as Panthera leo, in a 2005 study of felid fossils from the Kuruwita site.

Description

Deraniyagala called the holotype "narrower and more elongate" but otherwise provided little information on what distinguished P. l. sinhaleyus from other lion subspecies, and distinguished it only from the teeth of tigers by its larger size. The 2005 study also described it in more detail.

See also


This page was last updated at 2024-03-25 17:16 UTC. Update now. View original page.

All our content comes from Wikipedia and under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.


Top

If mathematical, chemical, physical and other formulas are not displayed correctly on this page, please useFirefox or Safari