• Panthera leo leo (the African lion)
• Panthera leo persica (the Asiatic lion)

You have to admit that this was relatively well understood and scientists were discussing the differences between African populations of lions. Where there actual sub-species or independent populations of the same species.

Now, this is challenged very seriously by the most recent scientific studies (as usual in science, it’s still a bit early to settle this into the official theory; but it’s getting more interesting). Recent studies (mostly genetic ones) have shown that the Asiatic lions are more similar to East-Africa lions. And there are more differences than initially expected between African lions.

So, the latest proposal from the Cat Specialist Group (at the Species Survival Commission SSC of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)) is to define two species:

• Panthera leo leo (also called the Northern subspecies)
• Panthera leo melanochaita (the Southern subspecies)

This is a good example of science progress: New data forces to revise the existing understanding to integrate the old facts, the new facts into a better theory. In the case at hand, it is admitted that external physical characteristics and behaviors (and Asiatic lions and North-Eastern African lions are different from these points of view) would be less important to define species. In the past, genetic information was not available and scientists from the past had to rely on available information.

Source: A revised taxonomy of the Felidae, in CATnews Special Issue 11, Winter 2017.

Don’t try this at home. Or with your own Fido, not with Nala…

Is there anything dirtier?

The tourist has been tracked and found. He paid $55,000 to leave with the skin and head of the superb animal who was loved and admired by all (bar one). It was an American dentist, Walter James Palmer (first suspicions were wrongly looking toward a Spanish touist).

Even in his country, he is now reviled. At least, not all the North American are not this kind of a-hole. I specially appreciated Jimmy Kimmel’s reaction on his TV show: He is asking what reason could draw a normal man to such an act: The Vox: Jimmy Kimmel’s emotional monologue about Cecil the lion.

Let all lion hunters know that they are often out of the law and they are all the dirtiest of the dirtiest, not worth being part of the human society.

Ready for a kill at any time.

Tame, you said?

Listen to Kevin explaining that the back of the ears have the smoothest fur.

Then, you’ll also be able to admire spotted hyena friend of Kevin (they aren’t cats, but they are much nicer than what you’d believe).

And remember what Kevin says at the end: “If we carry on along the same path, we’ll not see lions in twenty years”.

Is it really necessary to mention that you should not try this with lions not from your own home?

Happy new year to all big cat lovers.

Tree climbing Lion in Uganda 0186 by Merv Colton, on Flickr

Brothers nose to nose by Tambako the Jaguar, on Flickr

A picture from the 8-volume series by Johann Bechstein, ‘Getreue Abbildungen Naturhistorischer Gegenstände’ (Realistic Pictures from Natural History), issued between 1795 and 1807. Seven of those volumes are available from the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg. (click through on a volume – band – then on anything below ‘Inhalt’, and then on ‘Vorschau’ for thumbnail pages.)

Bechstein books

Via BilbiOdyssey.

With a good video of a lion ride a “wall of death.”