An intriguing find of an early Middle Pleistocene European snow leopard, Panthera uncia pyrenaica ssp. nov. (Mammalia, Carnivora, Felidae), from the Arago cave (Tautavel, Pyrénées-Orientales, France)

Abstract A complete mandible of a leopard-sized cat from the early Middle Pleistocene Arago cave MIS 14 level (Tautavel, France) was at first assigned to snow leopard, Panthera uncia . subsequent comprehensive description and analysis found mandibular corpus leopard-like, but interpreted dentition more like pardus Thus, this classified as P. The re-study given in paper presents key its real evolutionary place. extant leopard is characterised by an autapomorphic excessively large dentition, not any other species. specimen represents symplesiomorphic small-tooth type. Subtracting character leaves diagnostic uncertainty, when only looking teeth, provides unambiguous P assignment for unique factor combination corpus. We deal with ancestral who demonstrates that later yet evolved Pleistocene. An abstract heading symposium program book proposed name tautavelensis nov. ssp., available International Code Zoological Nomenclature. Therefore, named pyrenaica ssp. single record Eurasian late Zhoukoudian Locality 3 (China) perfectly bridges difference between leopard. European history cats originally understood or less uniform development within species This turns out be repeated replacement different subspecies, involving Puma pardoides , It cannot even excluded leopards returned each intense cold period Late their Central Asian home Europe.