There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
08-08-2019, 05:59 PM( This post was last modified: 08-14-2019, 04:54 PM by BorneanTiger )
(08-06-2019, 11:22 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(01-24-2019, 06:38 PM)Sanju Wrote:
(01-24-2019, 06:35 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(01-24-2019, 06:13 PM)Sanju Wrote: Panthera leo leo Population is known or referred as "Northern Lion". My suggestion is to alter this thread name to that. IMO @BorneanTiger
Actually, a problem that I've highlighted earlier is that Southern lions (Panthera leo melanochaita) are also present in North-East or Central Africa, and that's why we have this thread, to make it clear that there are issues with the Cat Specialist Group's classification of lions in Central Africa as Panthera leo leo and those in East Africa (which includes Ethiopia) as Panthera leo melanochaita, and that's why there's a question mark on the map of lion subspecies in Page 72: https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/hand...sAllowed=y
*This image is copyright of its original author
Yes, there is a considerable hybridization b/w melonochaita and leo in that zone.
It's not necessarily the case that they found mixed up lions, it's to do with where geneticists found Northern (P. l. leo) and Southern lions (P. l. melanochaita) in Ethiopia or Northeast Africa. Firstly, let's start with the genetic study that made the captive Ethiopian lions at Addis Abeba Zoo famous, that of Bruche et al. Ethiopia is in East Africa, so it was expected that these lions would be closely related to wild East African lions in Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti ecosystem. However, the Addis Abeba lions (Haplotype 6) were found to be genetically distinct from other East African lions (including those at Ngorongoro and Serengeti, and Haplotypes 8 and 10, which included lions in Uganda, Somalia and Tsave East National Park in Kenya) besides the Asiatic (Haplotypes 1 and 2) and Southern African lions (Haplotypes 10–15, including those at Kruger National Park in South Africa, and Etosha National Park in Namibia), and captive Yemeni lions at Sana'a Zoo (which were thought to be of Ethiopian origin, Haplotype 9), and genetically close to wild Central African lions (Haplotypes 4 and 5) in Chad (particularly in Zakouma National Park) and Cameroon (particularly Bénoué and Waza National Parks), among others (including apparently those impure Barbary lions at Rabat Zoo which have Central, Western or Northeast African descent), despite being termed "genetically unique". The Addis Ababa lions also showed little signs of inbreeding compared to wild populations: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10344-012-0668-5
However, scat samples of lions in Nechisar (Numbers 52 and 53) were found to cluster with East African samples from Kenya and Somali in a single Haplotype (13), part of what Bertola et al. referred to as the "North-east clade" of the Southern lion group, whereas a scat sample from a lion in Bale (Number 54) was found to cluster with Central African samples from Chad, D. R. Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic in another Haplotype (9), in what Bertola et al. referred to as the "Central clade" of the Northern lion group: https://media.nature.com/original/nature-assets/srep/2016/160804/srep30807/extref/srep30807-s1.pdf
North-East / Central / Equatorial African lions
