An American Lion, in Fossil Form

Wordless Wednesday

The skeleton of an extinct American lion (Panthera atrox) found
in the La Brea tar pits, Los Angeles, California. The American
lion was one of the largest cats that ever lived, and was larger
than the modern African lion. They roamed parts of North America
during the Pleistocene epoch  (340,000-11,000 years ago).
This specimen is in the George C. Page Museum in Los Angeles.
Photo by Ed Bierman.
[CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons.

And this reconstruction shows what the American lion might have
looked  like in the flesh. By Sergiodlarosa.
  CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/),
via Wikimedia Commons.