Barbary or Atlas lions

[peter]

a - INTRODUCTION

I'm sure many of you have seen this splendid photograph before:

*This image is copyright of its original author

It was discussed at many forums over the years. Most thought the photograph had been taken before the First World War. Not quite true. This lion was photographed in 1925.

It surely had to be one of the very last wild Barbary lions, many thought. Also not true. Although they had all but vanished between 1890-1910, Barbary or Atlas lions might have survived in isolated spots in Morocco and Algeria until the late fifties or even early sixties of the last century! It's very likely that the French-Algerian conflict was the nail in their coffin.   

There are many myths about these lions. For starters, I advice to read this article published a few years ago (Black et al, 2013). A very interesting read. Yamaguchi also contributed:  

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0060174 Reply