Carnivores from Los Rincones, a leopard den in the highest mountain of the Iberian range (Moncayo, Zaragoza, Spain)

Pleistocene leopards in the Iberian Peninsula: New evidence from palaeontological and archaeological contexts in the Mediterranean region

“…The metatarsals exhibit significant robustness (Tables 8 and 11), greater than the values for P. pardus and similar to or greater than P. uncia, as suggested by Nagel (1999) and Sauqu e et al (2014a), which has been associated with a process of convergence between Pleistocene leopards and P. uncia because they inhabited a similar environment.…”

“…The presence of a rounded protocone is characteristic of the last European Pleistocene leopards and P. uncia, an area that tends to decrease from ancient forms to the end of the Late Pleistocene. In general, the morphology of P4 in Late Pleistocene leopards has similarities with P. uncia (Sauqu e et al, 2014a).…”

“…Avenc de Joan Guit on (AJG-1); Algar da Manga Larga (nn; Cardoso and Regala, 2006); Allekoaitze and Aintzulo (nn; Altuna and Mariezkurrena, 2013); Abric Romaní (nn;C aceres et al, 1993); Equi (IGF15111V/1, IGF15110V, IGF185V/1, IGF10036V; Ghezzo and Rook, 2015); Observatoire (nn; Boule and de Villeneuve, 1927); Vjetrenica (VJE-1; Diedrich, 2013); Monte Sacro (MPUR/V1191; Kotsakis and Palombo, 1979) (IAN) in Vitoria and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in the United States. Various articles were also used: Schmid (1940), Testu (2006), Sims (2005Sims ( , 2012, Christiansen (2008), Diedrich (2013), Sauqu e and Cuenca-Besc os (2013), Indu et al (2013), Podhade et al (2013, 2014a and, Sauqu e et al (2014a) and Ghezzo and Rook (2015). For the description of the cranial and mandibular material from Avenc de Joan Guit on (AJG), other well-preserved Late Pleistocene leopard skulls from the Iberian Peninsula were used as comparative paratypes: Algar da Manga Larga (Cardoso and Regala, 2006), Allekoaitze and Aintzulo (Corral, 2012;Altuna and Mariezkurrena, 2013).…”

“…The species is now extinct in Europe, but during the Pleistocene it was widely distributed (Sommer and Benecke, 2006), with occurrences throughout much of this continent (Bonifay, 1971;Kotsakis and Palombo, 1979;Spassov and Raychev, 1997;Fischer, 2000;Cardoso and Regala, 2006;Baryshnikov, 2011;Marciszak et al, 2011;Testu et al, 2011;Altuna and Mariezkurrena, 2013;Diedrich, 2013;Sauqu e and Cuenca-Besc os, 2013;Sauqu e et al, 2014a;Ghezzo and Rook, 2015). The earliest appearance of P. pardus in Europe could be the Early Pleistocene remains found at Le Vallonnet (Moull e et al, 2006), although most leopard identifications in ancient contexts have been questioned and the remains reassigned to Puma pardoides (Hemmer, 2001;Argant, 2004;Hemmer et al, 2004;Madurell-Malapeira et al, 2010;Cherin et al, 2013).…”

Pleistocene cave hyenas in the Iberian Peninsula: New insights from Los Aprendices cave (Moncayo, Zaragoza

“…Both the modification pattern and the size of the marks are very similar to those that could have been produced by either a wolf or a European leopard. The presence of both these taxa has been established at a Late Pleistocene site in the vicinity of the site of Los Rincones (Sauqué et al, , 2016a(Sauqué et al, , 2016b. Moreover, taphonomic analysis of the hyena indicates that the marks were not produced by another cave hyena, suggesting that it is most likely that the animal met its death in a solitary context.…”