Before human beings, Felidae, or cats, were the most successful, powerful predators in most of the world.
Even today, big cats such as tigers, lions, jaguars and leopards keep causing admiration and fear, but these magnificent beasts are dwarfed by some of their extinct relatives.
Here are prehistory’s largest, mightiest cats, some of which were seen by modern humans only a few thousand years ago.
1- Giant Cheetah (Acinonyx pardinensis)
2- Xenosmilus hodsonae "cookie-cutter panda cat"
3- Giant Jaguar (Panthera onca augusta)
4- European Jaguar (Panthera gombaszoegensis)
5- Cave Lion (Panthera spelaea)
6- Homotherium
7- Machairodus
8- American Lion (Panther atrox)
9- Ngandong tiger (Panthera tigris soloensis)
10- Smilodon
#extinctionblog #pleistocenemegafauna #extinctmegafauna

Music: Darkness is Coming by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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