Asiatic lions outside India

[BorneanTiger]

Today, the Asiatic lion (which was considered to be a subspecies of its own, with the scientific name Panthera leo persica, before being subsumed by the Cat Specialist Group in 2017 to the Northern lion subspecies (Panthera leo leo), due to its genetic closeness with lions in northern parts of Africa, including the Barbary and West African lions) is found either in the wilderness of Gujarat State in Western India, in and around Gir Forest, or in captivity. Previously, it is recorded to have had a huge range extending from India or South Asia (including what is now Pakistan) in the east, to Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey) in the west, and Transcaucasia (or "South Caucasus", including Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia) and Central Asia (including the oasis' region of Khwarizm) in the north, barring lions which historically occurred in southern Europe (including Greece, there's another threadfor that): https://www.wdl.org/en/item/17720/view/2/342/, https://archive.org/stream/journalofbomb...2/mode/2up, https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...2/mode/2up

Let me first start with depictions of this population of lions in the book of Heptner and Sludskiy (1972), note the belly-covering manes: https://archive.org/stream/mammalsofsov2...2/mode/2up

*This image is copyright of its original author

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