The cave lion cub frozen in time

File photo: Cave lions were close relatives of the lions that roam Africa today and were a similar size. Picture:Itumeleng English

File photo: Cave lions were close relatives of the lions that roam Africa today and were a similar size. Picture:Itumeleng English

Published Oct 29, 2015

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London - It’s secrets have been preserved in Siberia’s icy wastes for more than 10 000 years.

Now scientists hope this cave lion cub, and another found alongside it, will yield vital clues to prehistoric life on Earth.

Their bodies were discovered in the permafrost in the Sakha Republic, a part of Siberia also known as Yakutia.

Cave lions were close relatives of the lions that roam Africa today and were a similar size.

They lived in a vast area stretching from the British Isles to eastern Russia, as well as in Alaska and Canada, from around 370 000 years ago to the end of the last Ice Age.

But until the cubs were discovered our knowledge about them was based on fragments of skeletons and carcasses. The main clue to what the predators looked like came from prehistoric cave paintings. Scientists hope that the almost perfectly preserved bodies may yield genetic material – which in theory would allow the cubs to be cloned to bring cave lions back to life.

Further details about the find will be given by the Academy of Science of Yakutia at a press conference in late November.

The remains of a woolly mammoth, a woolly rhinoceros, bison and horses found preserved in the region will also be presented.

Daily Mail

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