Panthera leo (Linnaeus 1758)

[Felis] leo Linnaeus 1758, Syst. Nat., 10th ed., Vol. 1: 41.

Type Locality: "Africa", restricted by J. A. Allen (1924:222) to "the Barbary coast region of Africa, or, more explicitly, Constantine, Algeria ".

Vernacular Names: Lion.

Subspecies::

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. leo Linnaeus 1758

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. azandica J. A. Allen 1924

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. bleyenberghi Lönnberg 1914

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. hollisteri J. A. Allen 1924

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. kamptzi Matschie 1900

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. krugeri Roberts 1929

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. massaica Neumann 1900

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. melanochaita C. E. H. Smith 1858

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. nyanzae Heller 1913

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. persica Meyer 1826

Subspecies Panthera leo subsp. senegalensis J. N. von Meyer 1826

Distribution: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau (?), India, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Recently extinct: Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Gambia, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Libya, Kuwait, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Tunisia, Western Sahara.

Conservation: CITES – Appendix I as P. l. persica; otherwise Appendix II; U.S. ESA – Endangered as P. l. persica; IUCN – Critically Endangered as P. l. persica, otherwise Vulnerable.

Discussion: Synonyms allocated according to Ellerman and Morrison-Scott (1951); G. M. Allen (1939). Revised by Pocock (1930 c). Placed in Panthera by Pocock (1930 c), Weigel (1961), Hemmer (1978), Kratochvíl (1982 c), and Groves (1982 a).