Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

[tigerluver]

Historical accounts from the Arabian and Roman empire are only familiar with lions if I remember correctly, especially in the case of Arabian accounts. From this, I infer that lions may have naturally spread to western most Asia. At the same time, many Roman and Arabian nations were mixing into Northern Africa, where we know for sure lions were found, thus it is also possible that the familiarity with the lion came from those experiences. The lion fossils from Israel that are allegedly 25 ka - 65 ka are indicators that lions natively arrived in western-most Asia. 

The question is did lions get deeper into Asia. There is no certain fossil record of lions beyond the Israel digsite if I'm not mistaken. Metapodial and long bones are often too easily given to the lion as the owner. The similar sized tiger and lion have subtle difference in long bones characteristics, and as data is scant on bone dimensions, I've a knack that often times those who claim they've found lion aren't checking for the subtle differences. In order to be certain of identity, width to length ratios must be accessed. None of the alleged Asian lion finds published any measurements to show these ratios for assessment. The metapodial claims are also difficult to identity simply due to the metapodials being evolutionarily one of the most volatile aspects of anatomy. 

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