Panthera leo melanochaita

Panthera leo melanochaita
Male lion in Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya
Lioness in Etosha National Park, Namibia
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Subfamily: Pantherinae
Genus: Panthera
Species:
P. leo
Subspecies:
P. l. melanochaita
Trinomial name
Panthera leo melanochaita
(Smith, 1842)
Synonyms[1]
  • P. l. bleyenberghi
  • P. l. krugeri
  • P. l. hollisteri
  • P. l. massaica
  • P. l. nyanzae

Panthera leo melanochaita is a lion subspecies in Southern and East Africa.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3] In 2005, a Lion Conservation Strategy was developed for East and Southern Africa.[4]

Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that lion populations in southern and eastern Africa form 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.[5]

The type specimen for P. l. melanochaita was a black-maned lion from the Cape of Good Hope, known as the Cape lion.[6] 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.[7] It has been referred to as the Southern lion, Southern African lion, East-Southern African lion[8] and the "southern subspecies".[9][10]

  1. ^ a b c Kitchener, A. C.; Breitenmoser-Würsten, C.; Eizirik, E.; Gentry, A.; Werdelin, L.; Wilting, A.; Yamaguchi, N.; Abramov, A. V.; Christiansen, P.; Driscoll, C.; Duckworth, J. W.; Johnson, W.; Luo, S.-J.; Meijaard, E.; O'Donoghue, P.; Sanderson, J.; Seymour, K.; Bruford, M.; Groves, C.; Hoffmann, M.; Nowell, K.; Timmons, Z. & Tobe, S. (2017). "A revised taxonomy of the Felidae: The final report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group" (PDF). Cat News. Special Issue 11: 71–73. Archived (PDF) from the original on 30 July 2018. Retrieved 5 August 2019.
  2. ^ Bauer, H.; Packer, C.; Funston, P. F.; Henschel, P. & Nowell, K. (2016). "Panthera leo". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2016: e.T15951A115130419.
  3. ^ Bauer, H.; Chapron, G.; Nowell, K.; Henschel, P.; Funston, P.; Hunter, L. T.; Macdonald, D. W. & Packer, C. (2015). "Lion (Panthera leo) populations are declining rapidly across Africa, except in intensively managed areas". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 112 (48): 14894–14899. Bibcode:2015PNAS..11214894B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1500664112. PMC 4672814. PMID 26504235.
  4. ^ IUCN Cat Specialist Group (2006). Conservation Strategy for the Lion Panthera leo in Eastern and Southern Africa (PDF). Pretoria, South Africa: IUCN. Archived (PDF) from the original on 3 August 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2018.
  5. ^ a b Bertola, L. D.; Jongbloed, H.; Van Der Gaag, K. J.; De Knijff, P.; Yamaguchi, N.; Hooghiemstra, H.; Bauer, H.; Henschel, P.; White, P. A.; Driscoll, C. A. & Tende, T. (2016). "Phylogeographic patterns in Africa and High Resolution Delineation of genetic clades in the Lion (Panthera leo)". Scientific Reports. 6: 30807. Bibcode:2016NatSR...630807B. doi:10.1038/srep30807. PMC 4973251. PMID 27488946.
  6. ^ Mazak, V. (1975). "Notes on the Black-maned Lion of the Cape, Panthera leo melanochaita (Ch. H. Smith, 1842) and a Revised List of the Preserved Specimens". Verhandelingen Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (64): 1–44.
  7. ^ Barnett, R.; Sinding, M. H.; Vieira, F. G.; Mendoza, M. L.; Bonnet, M.; Araldi, A.; Kienast, I.; Zambarda, A.; Yamaguchi, N.; Henschel, P. & Gilbert, M. T. (2018). "No longer locally extinct? Tracing the origins of a lion (Panthera leo) living in Gabon". Conservation Genetics. 19 (3): 611–618. doi:10.1007/s10592-017-1039-2. PMC 6448349. PMID 31007636.
  8. ^ Bauer, H.; Chardonnet, P.; Nowell, K. (December 2005), Status and distribution of the lion (Panthera leo) in East and Southern Africa (PDF), Johannesburg, South Africa: East and Southern African lion Conservation Workshop, archived (PDF) from the original on 29 July 2018, retrieved 3 September 2018
  9. ^ Hunter, L. & Barrett, P. (2018). "Lion Panthera leo". The Field Guide to Carnivores of the World (2 ed.). London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury. pp. 46−47. ISBN 978-1-4729-5080-2. Archived from the original on 5 March 2024. Retrieved 27 December 2018.
  10. ^ Schofield, A. (2013). White Lion: Back to the Wild. BookBaby. ISBN 978-0-620-57005-3.[permanent dead link‍]