West African lion

''Panthera leo leo'' is a lion subspecies, which is present in West Africa, northern Central Africa and India. In West and Central Africa it is restricted to fragmented and isolated populations with a declining trajectory. It has been referred to as the Northern lion.

Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that lion populations in West and Central African range countries are genetically close to populations in India, forming a major clade distinct from lion populations in Southern and East Africa. In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group subsumed lion populations according to the major clades into two subspecies, namely ''P. l. leo'' and ''P. l. melanochaita''. Within ''P. l. leo'' three subclades are clearly distinguishable. One from Asia, which includes the extinct Barbary lions of North Africa, another one from West Africa and a third one from Central Africa, north of the rainforest belt.

''P. l. leo'' is regionally extinct in North Africa, southern Europe, and West Asia. Asia's sole lion population lives in and around Gir National Park, India. The West African lion population is geographically isolated and numbers fewer than 250 mature individuals. It is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List.

Taxonomy

A lion from Constantine, Algeria was the type specimen for the specific name ''Felis leo'' used by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. In the 19th and 20th centuries, several lion zoological specimens from Africa and Asia were described and proposed as subspecies:
*''Felis leo persicus'' described in 1826 by Johann N. Meyer was a lion skin from Persia.
*''Felis leo senegalensis'' also described by Meyer in 1826, but based on a lion skin from Senegal.
*''Felis leo nubicus'' described in 1843 by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville was a male lion from Nubia that had been sent by Antoine Clot from Cairo to Paris and died in the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in 1841.
*''Leo gambianus'' described in 1843 by John Edward Gray was a specimen from Gambia in the collection of the British Museum of Natural History.
*''Felis leo kamptzi'' described in 1900 by Paul Matschie was a lion skull from northern Cameroon.
*''Leo leo azandicus'' described in 1924 by Joel Asaph Allen was a male lion that was killed in 1912 in northeastern Belgian Congo as part of a zoological collection comprising 588 carnivore specimens. Allen admitted a close relationship of this lion specimen to ''Leo leo massaicus'' from Kenya regarding cranial and dental characteristics, but argued that his type specimen differed in pelage colouration.
In 1930, Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the lion to the genus ''Panthera'' when he wrote about Asiatic lion specimens in the zoological collection of the British Museum of Natural History.

In the following decades, there has been much debate among zoologists on the validity of proposed subspecies:
*In 1939, Glover Morrill Allen recognized ''Felis leo kamptzi'' and ''F. l. azandicus'' as valid taxa among ten lion subspecies.
*Three decades later, John Ellerman and Terence Morrison-Scott recognized only two lion subspecies in the Palearctic realm, namely the African (''P. l. leo'') and Asiatic lions (''P. l. persica'').
*Some authors considered ''P. l. nubicus'' a valid subspecies and synonymous with ''P. l. massaica'', a specimen from Kenya.
*Some authors considered ''P. l. azandicus'' synonymous with ''P. l. massaicus'' and ''P. l. somaliensis'', and ''P. l. kamptzi'' synonymous with ''P. l. senegalensis''.
*In 2005, Wallace Christopher Wozencraft recognized ''P. l. kamptzi'', ''P. l. bleyenberghi'' and ''P. l. azandica'' as valid taxa.
*In 2016, IUCN Red List assessors used ''P. l. leo'' for all African lion populations.
In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group subsumed lion populations in North, West and Central Africa and Asia to ''P. l. leo'', based on results of genetic research on lion samples.

Phylogeny

Since the beginning of the 21st century, several phylogenetic studies were conducted to aid clarifying the taxonomic status of lion samples kept in museums and collected in the wild. Scientists analysed between 32 and 480 lion samples from up to 22 countries. They all agree that the lion comprises two evolutionary groups, one in the northern and eastern parts of its historical range, and the other in Southern and East Africa; they are estimated to have genetically diverged between 245,000 and 50,000 years ago. Tropical rainforest and the East African Rift possibly constituted major barriers between the two groups.

The two lion groups overlap in Ethiopia, as lion samples from Bale Mountains National Park clustered with lion samples from Central Africa, whereas other samples from this country clustered with samples from East Africa. Three clades can be distinguished within ''P. l. leo''. Lion samples from North Africa and India clustered into a single clade, and the lions in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa also form distinct clades. Analysis of phylogenetic data of 194 lion samples from 22 countries revealed that Central and West African lions diverged about 186,000–128,000 years ago from the ''melanochaita'' group in East and Southern Africa.

Samples from West Africa shared alleles with samples from Southern Africa, and samples from Central Africa shared alleles with samples from Asia. This indicates that Central Africa was a melting pot of lion populations after they had become isolated. They possibly migrated through corridors in the Nile Basin during the early Holocene. Genome-wide data of a historical lion sample from Sudan showed that it clustered with ''P. l. leo'' in mitochondrial DNA-based phylogenies, but with a high affinity with ''P. l. melanochaita''. The taxonomic position of lions in Central Africa may therefore require revision.

Characteristics

The lion's fur varies in colour from light buff to dark brown. It has rounded ears and a black tail tuft. Average head-to-body length of male lions is with a weight of . Females are smaller and less heavy.
Zoological lion specimens range in colour from light to dark tawny. Male skins have short manes, light manes, dark manes or long manes. Taxonomists recognised that neither skin nor mane colour and length of lions can be adduced as distinct subspecific characteristics. Then they turned to measuring and comparing lion skulls and found that skull length of Barbary and Indian lion samples does not differ significantly, ranging from in females and in males.
A few lion specimens from West Africa obtained by museums were described as having shorter manes than lions from other African regions. In general, the West African lion is similar in general appearance and size as lions in other parts of Africa and Asia.

Skeletal muscles make up 58.8% of the lion's body weight.

Distribution and habitat

Today, ''P. l. leo'' occurs in West and Central Africa and India. It is regionally extinct in Gambia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, the Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.
In 2005, a Lion Conservation Strategy was developed for West and Central Africa.
Contemporary lion distribution and habitat quality in savannahs of West and Central Africa was assessed in 2005, and Lion Conservation Units (LCU) mapped. Educated guesses for size of populations in these LCUs ranged from 3,274 to 3,909 individuals between 2002 and 2012.

West African clade

The last populations of the West African lion clade are surviving in a few protected areas from Senegal in the west to Nigeria in the east. This population has lost 99% of its former range. Between 246 and 466 lions live in the WAP-Complex, a large system of protected areas formed mainly by W, Arli, and Pendjari National Parks in Burkina Faso, Benin, and Niger

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