PALAEONTOLOGY, THE LION OF DRAMALJ

THE LION OF DRAMALJ - Panthera leo fossilis (REICHENAU, 1906) In the cave Vrtare male near Dramalj at the depth of about thirty metres, rich material has been extracted and collected from the cave sediment, consisting of fossil bones. Collected fossil remains relate to Pleistocene fauna of big mammals from the family Canidae, Ursidae, Felidae, Hyaenidae, Leporidae, Suidae, Cervidae, Bovidae, Rhinocerotidae, Equidae and Elephantidae. Among numerous and very well preserved bones prominent are the fossil remains of lions and bears. The particularity of this paleontological site is the fossil remains of cave lions, an extinguished species which lived in Europe and Asia during Middle Pleistocene. The material examined so far refers to fossil bones of three grown-up males and one female. Morphometric characteristics of teeth and other skeleton elements classify the lions of Dramalj into the Middle Pleistocene subspecies Panthera leo fossilis. With the body length of more than 240 cm, which is 50 cm more than the length of today's African lions, this subspecies represents the biggest cat that has ever lived on the territories of Europe and Asia. The lions of Dramalj are among the biggest ever found fossils of European lions. The confirmation of the Middle Pleistocene age is the result of the absolute dating method with uranium isotopes applied on the sample of fossil lion bone, with the preliminary age result of about 300,000 years. It is supposed that the cave Vrtare male represents only remains from the once much vaster speleological object whose entrance at the time of Middle Pleistocene probably functioned as a natural trap into which the animals were caught and died, to which fact the huge accumulation of very well preserved fossil bones is due. The cave Vrtare male is an exceptionally valuable palaeontological site, actually the most important one as concerns Middle Pleistocene mammals in Croatia. Dražen Japundžić