Carnivores from Los Rincones,a leopard den in the highest mountain of the Iberian range (Moncayo,Zaragoza, Spain)

Carnivores are a common element in Pleistocene fossil assemblages. However, they are not so abundant in terms of the numbers of remains. Here, we present a palaeontological study of the carnivores from the Late Pleistocene (MIS 3) of Los Rincones (Spain), one of the few deposits accumulated by leopards. One hundred and ten leopard remains have been recovered. This carnivore is not the only inhabitant of the cave, and 175 remains belonging to Ursus arctos have also been recovered, making it one of the sites with the greatest number of brown bear remains in the Iberian Peninsula. The large number of leopard remains has allowed us to make a detailed morphological and biometrical study that has enabled us to classify the remains within the subspecies Panthera pardus spelaea. The European Ice Age leopard inhabited Europe during Upper Pleistocene and it presents some similarities with Panthera uncia. A study of the scarce remains of Canis lupus indicates that this was similar in size to Canis lupus maximus; the scarcity of the remains prevents us from assigning our remains to this subspecies. A study of the brown bear remains indicates that it is similar to other populations in the north of the Iberian Peninsula with this chronology.