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04-29-2017, 03:17 AM( This post was last modified: 04-29-2017, 03:31 AM by GrizzlyClaws )
(04-29-2017, 03:01 AM)brotherbear Wrote: Were those European lions closely related to the Asiatic lions? That would seem to make sense.
Never mind the question. I just looked it up; P.l. persica is the Asiatic lion. Shows how little I know of lions.
The Holocene European lions were just another dispersed population of the Asiatic lions. Practically, they were Asiatic lions with thicker mane and longer fur because of living around the colder climate in Europe. Their size also depended on the contemporary ecosystems in Europe. Since a single subspecies could also have a lot of regional variation. For example, the Sundarbans tigers are smaller than other Bengal tigers, the Korean tigers were smaller than other Amur tigers. So it is possible for the Asiatic lions in Europe being somewhat larger than those of India.