The Iberian Peninsula, the last European refugium of panthera pardus linnaeus 1758 during the Upper Pleistocene

Abstract

The new Quaternary site of Los Rincones in the region of Moncayo (Zaragoza, north-east Spain) has provided a well-preserved mandible of Panthera pardus. This mandible shows morphological similarities with that of snow leopard, Panthera uncia. The resemblance between specimens described as P. pardus in the European Pleistocene and P. uncia raises the question of whether the morphological variability of P. uncia includes the specimens from the European Pleistocene or whether it is rather a case of convergence in which the European leopard acquired particular characters of the snow leopard, such as the flattened snout, the short dental diastema and the elongation of the carnassial, through an adaptation process to a mountain environment. In addition, the Moncayo mandible led to the revision of the P. pardus material from the Iberian Peninsula. Though this region is one of the most densively inhabited by P. pardus in Europe, it has been poorly studied in the past. This shows that the Cantabrian region in the north of the Iberian Peninsula might have been the last refuge for this species prior to its complete disappearance from Europe.