North-East / Central / Equatorial African lions

[BorneanTiger]

As for that lion which was first spotted in Batéké Plateau National Park in the Central African country of Gabon in 2015 (https://psmag.com/environment/the-forest-lion-of-gabon), it was determined by Barnett et al. (https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...017-1039-2) to be related to Southern African lions in Botswana or Namibia, and specimens from Franceville and Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the neighbouring Republic of Congo (a.k.a. Congo-Brazzaville, not to be confused with D. R. Congo, a.k.a. Congo-Kinshasa) were 99.9 % genetically similar to those of Batéké lions, differing by only 1 mutation (like the relationship between Amur and Caspian tigers), meaning that these lions in the Central African countries of Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville are likely of Southern African origin (Panthera leo melanochaita), which is a further complication for the CSG, because they classified lions in Central Africa as belonging to the northern subspecies (Panthera leo leo, Pages 71−73: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/hand...=y#page=72).

A Batéké lion in Gabon, 2015, photo in the Pacific Standard and CNN: 

*This image is copyright of its original author

Diagrams by Barnett et al.: https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...017-1039-2

*This image is copyright of its original author

Note the stars at the bottom of the diagram, that indicates where the Gabonese and C-Brazzaville lions maternally belong, and note that the lineage of a cave lion from Germany is below them: 

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply