Genetic / taxonomic issues for the Cat Specialist Group

[BorneanTiger]

(05-09-2020, 10:08 AM)Sully Wrote: Really interesting stuff there, just as Zambia (if I remember correctly) is the corridor between eastern and southern melanochaita, central Africa seemed to serve as that for leo and melanochaita. 

Among us on the forum, which version of both lion and tiger subspecies classification do you subscribe to? I appreciate none of us are geneticists (that I know at least) but I'm interested to hear general opinions anyway.

Ultimately, it can depend on how you define a 'subspecies'; if you're ready to accept the idea that Bengal tiger is the same subspecies as say Indochinese and Siberian tigers, because Continental or Mainland Asian tigers are more closely related to each other than they are to the Sumatran, Javan, and Balinese tigers (and possibly Bornean tigers, see this thread) in the Sunda Islands, then you could accept the idea that the Asiatic or Eurasian lion is the same subspecies as say Barbary and West African lions in northern parts of Africa, because they are more closely related to each other than they are to lions in southern parts of Africa (like Tanzania, South Africa and Namibia), and that's what the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group did in 2017. Otherwise, if you would question the idea that the Asiatic or Eurasian lion is the same subspecies as lions in northern parts of Africa, since they are geographically distinct at least, then you could find the idea that there are only 2 subspecies of tigers controversial, on both genetic and geographical grounds (for instance, Bengal tigers are both genetically and geographically distinct from Amur tigers), and it certainly was for some CSG members (Stephen O’Brien, Shu-Jin Luo and Carlos Driscoll): https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/06/...ypes-tiger, https://www.cell.com/current-biology/ful...18)31214-4? Reply