Some more random thoughts from me

• The International Cave Bear Symposium (ICBS) is a thing. I find it cool.
  
• This fully-complete Pleistocene Ursus arctos skeleton from Atlantyda Cave in the western Ukraine looks top-notch (Source: icbs2013.at/fileadmin/user_upl…):

• Why have they not published a paper on this?! From icbs2015.pleistocenemammals.co…:
  

• Apparently, cave hyenas (Crocuta crocuta spelaea) used to dig up the graves of Neanderthals: www.researchgate.net/publicati…
  

• There was a time when tigers(Panthera tigris), cave lions(Panthera spelaea), Ussuri cave hyenas(Crocuta ultima ussurica), wolves(Canis lupus), brown bears(Ursus arctos) and leopards(Panthera pardus) possibly coexisted in one area.
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• George Rinaldino Teichmann's Panthera pardus spelaea looks cool, but the rosettes are too large and shouldn't have spots within them -  that's a jaguar thing.

Fig. 4. A. Reconstruction of the fur spot pattern of the last European Ice Age leopard Panthera pardus spelaea (Bächler, 1936) (Illustration G. “Rinaldino” Teichmann), a snow/caucasian leopards-related subspecies of the Late Pleistocene (MIS 3-5). B. Red painting of a “leopard” made by Late Palaeolithics (Aurignaciens/Gravettians) in the Chauvet Cave of southern France (modified image from Clottes, 2003). The lack of spots in the neck and balley area, and tassle tip stripes indicate a fur spot pattern very similar to Panthera uncia, the modern Asian alpine snow leopard. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

• For some reason, Dr. Cajus Diedrich, as awesome as he is, thinks that tigers are a subspecies of lion, and that leopards and snow leopards are somehow close relatives to phylogenetically bracket. (Source: Diedrich C (2013) Late Pleistocene leopards across Europe - northernmost European German population, highest elevated records in the Swiss Alps, complete skeletons in the Bosnia Herzegowina Dinarids and comparison to the Ice Age cave art. Quat Sci Rev 76: 167–193.25. doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.05.009)
  

• My Chemistry teacher reminds me of Walking With Cavemen's Homo ergaster. That's an insult to those brave strong hominids.
• This video is NOICE
• Cave lions (KAYV LAYANZ ) were huge:

• Ursus ingressus/ kanivetz was HUGER

(Granted the U. spelaeus is a subadult)

• There were Malayan porcupines in Europe during the last ice age. So yeah.: benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/T…

Fig. (8). Known Hystrix (Acanthion) brachyura Linnaeus 1758 localities in Europe with the new added localities and migration model from Asia over the Carpathians to northern Germany. Glaciers are figured in their Early Weichselian and in lines with their maximum extensions in the Late Weichselian maximum cold period.

• In 2008, a well-preserved cave lion skeleton was unearthed near the banks of the Malyi-Anyui river in Chukotka, Russia. The 2015 paper analysing the well-preserved cave lion began solemnly with the phrase: "Ex ungue leonem pingere (Latin): from the claw we may judge the lion." in reference to the preserved keratinous claws of the specimen.

Fig. 10. Small bones of the posterior limbs of the Anyui lion and keratin skin derivates. A - right patella, F-2678/64; В - left patella, F-2678/65; С - right astragalus, F-2678/63; D - 3rd metatarsal (MtIII), F-2678/67. E - claw phalanx, F-2678/66: E-1 - complete; E-2 - claw sheath; E-3 - bone of the 3rd phalanx; F - mat of hair. Scale: 2 cm. Ice Age Museum.

• The lion had hair. Radiocarbon dating gave the bones an age of more than 61,000 years, but the hair was younger, at around 28,000 years ago, highlighting the possibility of a different individual. However, contamination from soil could also explain the younger date:

Fig. 2. Photomicrographs of the yellowish matted fur found alongside the remains of a skeleton of cave lion. (А) Small wads of fur with black guard hairs indicated by arrows; (B) the hair was highly heterogeneous: thick black guard hairs and thin and waved yellowish downy hairs are visible, and black guard hairs are indicated by arrows; (Box) guard hairs. Scale bars are 1 cm. Note: In the cave lion fur we found one dark hair (thickness up to 34 mm) identified as a small rodent hair. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

• Similar to captive Siberian tigers, the Anyui lion's carnassials show little sign of bone-eating, suggesting that it largely hunted its own prey, eating more flesh from a carcass.

• Isotopic analysis of it and other East Siberian lions shows very limited variation among individuals, with a largely uniform diet, with the exception of one specimen, and preferences away from reindeer (eating instead Bison, horse, and Siberian bighorn sheep). This contrasts with Western Europe, where the diet was highly individualistic and reindeer-oriented. 
• The lack of reindeer could be attributed to a local rarity of the species, since they are rare relative to other megafauna in the local region.

• Could the largely uniform diet suggest some form of collective hunting in Eastern Siberian/Beringian cave lions? I know this is a very small sample, as cave lion remains are fairly rare in Russia, but it seems like an interesting idea, and would explain their ability to kill blue babe, for example.