Lion

The lion ( Panthera leo ) is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera , and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding 250 kg (550 lb) in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in Sub-Saharan Africa and in Asia with an endangered remnant population in Gir Forest National Park in India, having disappeared from North Africa and Southwest Asia in historic times. Until the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago, the lion was the most widespread large land mammal after humans. They were found in most of Africa, across Eurasia from western Europe to India, and in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru. The lion is a vulnerable species, having seen a possibly irreversible population decline of thirty to fifty percent over the past two decades in its African range. Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are currently the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion population is particularly endangered.

Lions live for ten to fourteen years in the wild, while in captivity they can live longer than twenty years. In the wild, males seldom live longer than ten years, as injuries sustained from continual fighting with rival males greatly reduce their longevity. They typically inhabit savanna and grassland, although they may take to bush and forest. Lions are unusually social compared to other cats. A pride of lions consists of related females and offspring and a small number of adult males. Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. Lions are apex and keystone predators, although they scavenge as opportunity allows. While lions do not typically hunt humans, some have been known to do so.

Highly distinctive, the male lion is easily recognised by its mane, and its face is one of the most widely recognised animal symbols in human culture. Depictions have existed from the Upper Paleolithic period, with carvings and paintings from the Lascaux and Chauvet Caves, through virtually all ancient and medieval cultures where they once occurred. It has been extensively depicted in sculptures, in paintings, on national flags, and in contemporary films and literature. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire and have been a key species sought for exhibition in zoos the world over since the late eighteenth century. Zoos are cooperating worldwide in breeding programs for the endangered Asiatic subspecies.

Etymology

The lion's name, similar in many Romance languages, is derived from the Latin leo ; and the Ancient Greek λέων ( leon ). The Hebrew word לָבִיא ( lavi ) may also be related. It was one of the many species originally described by Linnaeus, who gave it the name Felis leo , in his eighteenth century work, Systema Naturae .

Taxonomy and evolution

The lion is a species of the genus Panthera and its closest relatives are the other species of this genus: the tiger, the jaguar, and the leopard. Panthera leo itself evolved in Africa between 1 million and 800,000 years ago, before spreading throughout the Holarctic region. It appeared in the fossil record in Europe for the first time 700,000 years ago with the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis at Isernia in Italy. From this lion derived the later cave lion ( Panthera leo spelaea ), which appeared about 300,000 years ago. Lions died out in northern Eurasia at the end of the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago; this may have been secondary to the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna.

Subspecies

Traditionally, twelve recent subspecies of lion were recognised, distinguished by mane appearance, size, and distribution. Because these characteristics are very insignificant and show a high individual variability, most of these forms were probably not true subspecies, especially as they were often based upon zoo material of unknown origin that may have had "striking, but abnormal" morphological characteristics. Today only eight subspecies are usually accepted, although one of these, the Cape lion, formerly described as Panthera leo melanochaita , probably is invalid. Even the remaining seven subspecies might be too many. While the status of the Asiatic lion ( P. l. persica ) as a subspecies is generally accepted, the systematic relationships among African lions are still not completely resolved. Mitochondrial variation in living African lions seemed to be modest according to some younger studies and therefore all sub-Saharan lions sometimes have been considered a single subspecies. However, a recent study revealed, that lions from western and central Africa differ genetically from lions of southern or eastern Africa. According to this study, Western African lions are more closely related to Asian lions, than to South or East African lions. These findings might be explained by a late Pleistocene extinction event of lions in western and central Africa and a subsequent recolonisation of these parts from Asia. Previous studies, which were focusing mainly on lions from eastern and southern parts of Africa already showed that these can be possibly divided in two main clades: one to the west of the Great Rift Valley and the other to the east. Lions from Tsavo in Eastern Kenya are much closer genetically to lions in Transvaal (South Africa), than to those in the Aberdare Range in Western Kenya. Another study, revealed, that there are three major types of lions, one North African–Asian, one southern African and one middle African. Conversely, Per Christiansen found that using skull morphology allowed him to identify the subspecies krugeri , nubica , persica , and senegalensis , while there was overlap between bleyenberghi with senegalensis and krugeri . The Asiatic lion persica was the most distinctive, and the Cape lion had characteristics allying it more with persica than the other subsaharan lions. He had analysed 58 lion skulls in three European museums.

Recent

Eight recent (Holocene) subspecies are recognised today:

• P. l. persica , known as the Asiatic lion or South Asian, Persian, or Indian Lion, once was widespread from Turkey, across Southwest Asia, to Pakistan, India, and even to Bangladesh. However, large prides and daylight activity made them easier to poach than tigers or leopards; now around 300 exist in and near the Gir Forest of India. Genetic evidence suggests its ancestors split from the ancestors of subsaharan African lions between 74 and 203 thousand years ago.
• P. l. leo , known as the Barbary lion, originally ranged from Morocco to Egypt. It is extinct in the wild due to excessive hunting, as the last wild Barbary lion was killed in Morocco in 1922. This was one of the largest of the lion subspecies, with reported lengths of 3–3.3 metres (10–10.8 ft) and weights of more than 200 kilograms (440 lb) for males. It appears to be more closely related to the Asiatic rather than subsaharan lions. There are a number of animals in captivity likely to be Barbary lions, particularly 90 animals descended from the Moroccan Royal collection at Rabat Zoo.
• P. l. senegalensis , known as the West African Lion, is found in western Africa, from Senegal to the Central African Republic.
• P. l. azandica , known as the Northeast Congo Lion, is found in the northeastern parts of the Congo.
• P. l. nubica , known as the East African, Massai Lion is found in east Africa, from Ethiopia and Kenya to Tanzania and Mozambique., a local population is known as Tsavo Lion.
• P. l. bleyenberghi , known as the Southwest African or Katanga Lion, is found in southwestern Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Katanga (Zaire), Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• P. l. krugeri , known as the Southeast African Lion or Transvaal Lion, is found in the Transvaal region of southeastern Africa, including Kruger National Park.
• P. l. melanochaita , known as the Cape lion, became extinct in the wild around 1860. Results of mitochondrial DNA research do not support the status as a distinct subspecies. It seems probable that the Cape lion was only the southernmost population of the extant P. l. krugeri .

Pleistocene

Several additional subspecies of lion existed in prehistoric times:

• P. l. fossilis , known as the Early Middle Pleistocene European cave lion, flourished about 500,000 years ago; fossils have been recovered from Germany and Italy. It was larger than today's African lions, reaching the American cave lion in size
• P. l. spelaea , known as the European cave lion, Eurasian cave lion, or Upper Pleistocene European cave lion, occurred in Eurasia 300,000 to 10,000 years ago. This species is known from Paleolithic cave paintings (such as the one displayed to the right), ivory carvings, and clay busts, indicating it had protruding ears, tufted tails, perhaps faint tiger-like stripes, and that at least some males had a ruff or primitive mane around their necks.
• P. l. atrox , known as the American lion or American cave lion, was abundant in the Americas from Canada to Peru in the Pleistocene Epoch until about 10,000 years ago. This form is the sister clade of P. l. spelaea , and likely arose when an early P. l. spelaea population became isolated south of the North American continental ice sheet about 340 000 years ago. One of the largest