With such abundant game down on the plains, this hunter's life must have been pretty good.

 

Sheer size and power and the benefit of life within a pride made it the unmatched ruler of the plains. By looking at the lions of Africa today, we can imagine how these ice age cats once lived in small prides based around a group of hunting females.

 

Like wolves, lions work together to win larger prey. After a leading hunter launches the attack, the others move in, helping to dispatch the victim with a suffocating bite. But even for these rulers of the plains, the good life had to end. They would be toppled by another predator with even sharper skills. 

 

The ice age lions joined the list of victims, animals that had lived here for hundreds of millennia, but were soon lost forever. 

 

Today few signs remain that any of them were ever here. Odd traces scattered far and wide across the plains. But if we piece together bones and teeth, plant fragments and the clues from animals alive today, we can begin to bring a lost world back to life.