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Showing posts with label SOUTHERN LION (FEMALE) (Panthera leo ssp. melanochaita). Show all posts
Showing posts with label SOUTHERN LION (FEMALE) (Panthera leo ssp. melanochaita). Show all posts

Tuesday, 25 June 2024

15-8-1984 AMBOSELI, KENYA - SOUTHERN LION (FEMALE) (Panthera leo ssp. melanochaita)


The Southern lion is a lion subspecies from Southern and East Africa. In this region, lion populations were referred to by several regional names, including Katanga lion, Transvaal lion, Kalahari lion, Southeast African lion, Southwest African lion, Masai lion, Serengeti lion, Tsavo lion, and Uganda lion. It has also been referred to as 'Eastern-Southern African lion', 'Southern lion', and as 'southern subspecies'.

The fur of Southern lions varies in color from light buff to dark brown. They have rounded ears and a black tail tuft. Mane color varies from sandy, tawny, isabelline, and light reddish yellow to dark brown and black. Mane length varies from short to extending to knee joints and under the belly. Lions without a mane were observed in the Tsavo area. Mane development is related to age: older males have more extensive manes than younger ones; manes continue to grow up to the age of four to five years, long after lions become reproductively mature. Males living in the Kenyan highlands develop heavier manes than lions in the more humid and warmer lowlands of eastern and northern Kenya. White lions have occasionally been encountered in and around South Africa's Kruger National Park and the adjacent Timbavati Private Game Reserve. Their whitish fur is a rare morph caused by a double recessive allele. It has normal pigmentation in the eyes and skin. They were removed from the wild in the 1970s, thus decreasing the white lion gene pool.

Wednesday, 28 December 2016

14-10-2015 VALENCIA BIOPARC - SOUTHERN LION (FEMALE) (Panthera leo ssp. melanochaita)


Panthera leo melanochaita is a lion subspecies in Southern and East Africa. In this part of Africa, lion populations are regionally extinct in Lesotho, Djibouti and Eritrea, and are threatened by loss of habitat and prey base, killing by local people in retaliation for loss of livestock, and in several countries also by trophy hunting. Since the turn of the 21st century, lion populations in intensively managed protected areas in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe have increased, but declined in East African range countries. In 2005, a Lion Conservation Strategy was developed for East and Southern Africa.

Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that lion populations in southern and eastern Africa are forming a major clade distinct from lion populations in West Africa, Central Africa and Asia.[5] 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.[1] Within P. l. melanochaita three subclades are clearly distinguishable. One from northeastern Africa, another one from southwestern Africa and a third one from southeastern Africa.

The type specimen for P. l. melanochaita was a black-maned lion from the Cape of Good Hope, known as the Cape lion. Phylogeographic analysis of lion samples from Gabon and the Republic of the Congo indicate their close genetic relation to P. l. melanochaita samples from Namibia and Botswana. It has been referred to as the Southern lion, Southern African lion, East-Southern African lion and the "southern subspecies".