American Lion Ulna Radius Replica

Description

American Lion Ulna Radius Bone Skeleton Replica for Felinology

American lion ulna radius bone replica measures 15.8 inches. Panthera atrox bone is museum-quality polyurethane resin cast from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Foundation, Page Museum specimen. 1:1 scale. Made in USA.

Like most Panthera species, based on the nature of their hyoid bones, American lions may have been capable of roaring. Whether American lion were gregarious like modern lions or lived solitary lives like tigers is unknown.

Ripple and Valkenburgh (2010) have suggested that the extinction of the American lion and other competing carnivores like dire wolves, and the sabertooth cats Smilodon and Homotherium may have been due to trophic cascade effects caused by Paleoindian hunting of herbivores.

These authors suggested that the herbivores already probably existed at low population numbers prior to Paleoindian arrival due to their abundance being limited by predators rather than being at the carrying capacity of the ecosystem based on food resources.

Due to humans having a more flexible omnivorous diet they may have been less subject to competition with other apex predators, allowing their population numbers to increase even as the number of herbivores declined.

Scientfic Classification

• Kingdom: Animalia
• Phylum: Chordata
• Class: Mammalia
• Order: Carnivora
• Suborder: Feliformia
• Family: Felidae
• Subfamily: Pantherinae
• Genus: Panthera
• Species: †P. atrox
• Binomial name: †Panthera atrox
• Conservation Status: Extinct

The extreme gape and jaw hinge mechanics seen in the  American lion saber-toothed cat and dire wolf, allowed them to bypass the thick defensive hide of the Harlan’s ground sloth, whose own skeletal architecture was specialized for heavy-set defense and efficient foraging.