• 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.

This is shown in the peak appearing on the right of the graph I borrowed from a scientific study titled “Fear of Darkness, the Full Moon and the Nocturnal Ecology of African Lions” and published in Plos One by Craig Packer, Alexandra Swanson, Dennis Ikanda and Hadas Kushnir.

They have looked at lion-involved accidents in Tanzania statistics. They have drawn a few conclusions:

• Fear of darkness is there for a reason.
• Attack rates double during the 10 days following a full Moon.
• North Tanzania is a lot safer.
• Lions are dangerous.
• Human beings are not well equipped to fight one or more lions.

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

We usually think that a country rich of an impressive wild life like Kenya is nearly out of danger of seeing the full extinction of an emblem of Africa like the lion. This is not all so certain.

According to the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), wild lions from Kenya are disappearing quite quickly: 100 lions less each year for the last 10 years. But there are no more than 2000 of them left. The last lion would so die in 20 years.

But Laurence Frank, biologist in the protection group for big cats, Panthera, believes that the KWS estimate is much too low and that the last lion in Kenya has no more than 10 years left!

The pressure applied by the human population onto the wild eco-system of Kenya already seems huge and this is compounded by a smuggling traffic small but measurable.

So, your next safari in Kenya this year may well be the last hope you have to see the king of animals.

Source: New Scientist.