An international team of scientists discovered on a cave lion fossil between 160,000 and 190,000 years old one of the oldest known healed serious injuries in animals, the University of Padua announced.
The research, published in the scientific journal Quaternary International, is based on the analysis of the fossil upper arm bone of a cave lion found in the Kanegra cave in Slovenia, reports Ansa.
The fossil was kept for decades in the Giovanni Capellini Museum of the University of Bologna, where it arrived during the Second World War, but until now it has not been studied in detail.
Using computerized tomography (CT), scientists analyzed the inside of the bone and determined that the animal had survived a very severe fracture.
The scans showed that the cancellous bone tissue had completely reorganized and reshaped to preserve the function of the muscles of the forelimb.
Although the fracture healed, the bone remained partially deformed.
According to Elena Geko from the Department of Geosciences of the University of Padua, the main author of the study, the bone became shorter after the injury than in healthy individuals, while the part where the shoulder muscles are attached strengthened considerably to compensate for the consequences of the fracture.
The researchers state that the animal had to survive in extremely difficult conditions after the injury.
It is assumed that the cave lion hid for weeks from potential predators, such as hyenas and other lions, with very limited access to food and water, waiting for the injury to heal, similar to the behavior of today’s lions in Africa, reports Tanjug.
Scientists point out that such finds are extremely rare, because so far very few bones of cave lions have been found with clearly visible pathological changes, while traces of trauma are even rarer.
The curator of the museum’s geological collection, Michela Kontesi, assessed that this discovery confirms the scientific value of the museum’s collections and shows how modern methods of analysis can contribute to new knowledge about the ancient past.
