#leopardclan

Basically, I've been watching a lot of paleontology-related videos lately about prehistoric wildlife, and it got me thinking about how there actually were big cats in England once like in the stories about the ancient Clans, but they weren't the lions, tigers, and leopards we know today. That gave me the idea that maybe the stories the Clans tell about those ancient Clans now are just heavily distorted versions of true events from England's ice age era and the real big cats that roamed the land at that time, twisted through many generations of retelling. Here, we see Squirrelflight telling her brood of three (more on why I chose these particular cats in a bit) the tales of the ancient Clans, while the true ancient cats are visible to the audience above her head, and the deeds from the nursery tales about them are painted on the cave walls.

As for the big cats themselves, there were (coincidentally enough) three big cat species in the UK during the ice age to choose from. I've chosen cave lions to represent LionClan, European ice age leopards to represent LeopardClan, and scimitar-toothed cats to represent TigerClan. Scimitar-toothed cats aren't as closely linked to tigers as cave lions are to African lions or ice age leopards are to today's leopards, but they were the only ones left to choose, and dangit they look cool so who cares? :P They didn't live in real Clans as the Clans imagine them in stories, they roamed either as solitary hunters or in loose groups (or in tighter groups like prides possibly, not totally sure what the consensus is for how these big cats lived, but there's a bit of wiggle room here considering these are fictional intelligent group-forming versions of these cats).

It was interesting trying to draw these three extinct species with no living photo refs. I used photos of lions and leopards for the cave lions and ice age leopards, but made some changes like adding more fluff for the leopard and giving the cave lion the shorter and broader muzzle and thick dense fur (but no sexually dimorphic mane) they were known to have. For the scimitar-toothed cat, there's really no living analog with quite the same facial features, so I ended up using this bit of paleoart as a reference. I gave the cave lion pretty simialar coloration and pattern to an african lion, only with a bit of a duller grayer coat. The leopard I made a bit paler than the leopards we know today, and the scimitar-toothed cat I used similar colors and pattern to a lynx, but with more darker stripe-ish markings to justify the "how TigerClan got their stripes" story.

I would like to stress here that I am not a paleoartist, I am not a paleontologist or a biology expert of any kind, I am simply a humble English major and website editor who likes to watch paleontology videos in my spare time. If there are any glaring inaccuracies in this in regards to how I depicted these species, I do apologize, I tried my best, but as I stressed I am in no way an expert or even a novice in this field.

The cave paintings above each cat's head represents the story told about their "Clan" in "Secrets of the Clans". For the scimitar-toothed cat, it's the moon shining its light down to create the shadows that will carve the dark stripes into their pelts - obviously just completely made up to explain the dark stripes these cats developed, which can be far more easily be explained as a form of camouflage in tall grass. For LeopardClan, it's the tale of Fleetfoot fighting the boars to claim the river, and for LionClan, it's Sunpelt's standoff against the giant snake Mouthclaw.

But here we have another twist. These cave paintings actually depict events, and creatures, far older than even these ancient Clans, stories passed down from their own ancient ancestors, or else surmzied through finding remainds of the ancient creatures and creating a story around them. The giant snake Mouthclaw is a titanoboa (they didn’t live anywhere near the UK, but oh well - maybe just one managed to find their way over there :P) and the "boars” Fleetfoot supposedly faced are actually the terrifying “hell pig” (actually more closely related to hippos, far more terrifying than boars in my opinion), the enteledont! I based the painting of Sunpelt on a real cave painting thought to be a cave lion, the one of Fleetfoot loosely on a real painting thought to be an ice age leopard, and the enteledont loosely on a real cave painting of a running boar. I couldn’t find any really old cave paintings of snakes in that same style, so I had to kind of wing that one. Not sure it totally fits the art style of the others, but oh well, best I could do.

Now for the last bit - why I chose Squirrel and her first litter to be the ones telling/hearing the tale. Mostly because of an interesting AU I thought of - what if the Three (not counting Hollyleaf, but oh well, I couldn’t exactly stick Dovekit in here when she wasn’t born yet) weren’t reincarnations of ancient Tribe cats, but of ancient big cats? Lionblaze would be a cave lion, of course, then maybe an ice age leopard for Dovewing and a scimitar-tooth for Jayfeather? Dunno, but it could make for a really fun AU. :D