Asiatic Lion Reintroduction Project

[GuateGojira]

Guys, this last study is just ONE in a large collection of DNA studies about lions. If you want hard data, that last one with all the previous included, you most read Dubach et al. (2013) and the new from Barnett et al. (2014). In these two studies, scientist put to rest any doubt about the relation between the North Africa-India lions and those from West Africa and Central Africa.

I am not going to enter in discussion about if the Indian lions are native or not, Valmik Thapar and his colleges (Exotic aliens, 2013) had made an excellent job, and present good points that put heavy doubts about the origin of lion in India. What I am going to state here is that Barbary and India lions (and all the specimens in the middle east too) are THE SAME animal, just like the Caspian and the Amur tigers. The idea of "several different subspecies" from the 19 and early 20 century most be discarded immediately, as none of those "subspecies" have been based in samples of at least 5 specimens, even worst, most of the lions "subspecies" are based in captive specimens that were apparently from specific areas.

At the end, there are only two "subspecies" of lions, with at least 2 clades:
1. Barbary-Indian lion (Panthera leo leo): West and Central Africa, North of Africa, middle east and India - no clades.
2. Sub-saharan lion (Panthera leo melanochaita): All the populations from East and Southern Africa - two clades, the East one and the Southern one.

On the Indian lion, Dubach et al. (2013) recommended to sustain the denomination P. l. persica for the Indian lion, based in its endangered status, but Barnett et al. (2014) finally accepted the fact of the uniqueness of the Barbary-Indian specimens and recommend to group all the specimens in the first scientific nomenclature P. l. leo, based in the Linnaeus first description, which was based in lions from North Africa.

I attach the two documents, read it very well, the information is gold, for any lion-fan. [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]
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  Dubach_et_al_2013_The genetic study of all Lion populations LCU.pdf (Size: 589.26 KB / Downloads: 5)
  Maternal demographic history of lion_DNA_2014.pdf (Size: 826.04 KB / Downloads: 10)