10,000-year-old frozen cave lion cubs found in Siberia

Russian paleontologists have discovered 10,000-year-old frozen cave lion cubs in the Ice Age permafrost of Yakutia, Siberia, reported Siberia Times on Wednesday.

The Academy of Sciences of Yakutia says that the perfectly-preserved cubs lived during middle and late Pleistocene periods on the Eurasian continent and resembled modern Afro-Asiatic lions.

The find is being described unprecedented because previously only fragments of carcasses or parts of skeletons were found in the area. The paleontologists said that the cubs found will also help explain the causes behind the extinction of ancient animals some 10,000 years ago.

Cave lions evolved from the earlier Panthera leo fossilis and first appeared in Europe around 700,000 years ago.