The Congo Lion

[BorneanTiger]

(01-26-2019, 06:03 PM)Rishi Wrote:

(01-26-2019, 05:23 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: D. R. Congo is the largest country in Central Africa, and Africa itself since 2011, when South Sudan broke off from Sudan, which used to be the biggest African country by area, so all Congolese lions are Central African lions, but not vice-versa, in the same way that all Indian lions are Asiatic lions, but that not all Asiatic lions that ever existed (such as in Arabia and Iran) are Indian lions.

Map of Central Africa, excluding South Sudan: https://lizardpoint.com/geography/africa...l-quiz.php

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Thanks, but thats not what i'm asking.

Not going into Northern & Southern Clades, Congo lion or Northeast Congo lion (Panthera leo azandica), also known as Uganda lion, is which one from the following map. The "North East" Population? 

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So, would that mean:
1. Ethiopian lions are mixture of Uganda/Congo lions & Central African ones?
2. The lion at Gabon was most definitely Central African & not Ugandan?

For that, see the other diagrams by Bertola et al. (https://www.nature.com/articles/srep3080..._evolution), and even the map on Page 72 by the Cat Specialist Group (https://repository.si.edu/bitstream/hand...sAllowed=y) could help, as it is derived from the work of Bertola et al.:

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Basically, the 'Northeast' clade depicted in the map by Bertola et al. is a clade of Southern lions (Panthera leo melanochaita) present in Kenya and Northeast Africa, where it overlaps with the 'Central' clade, which is a clade of Northern lions (Panthera leo leo) present in South Sudan, Cameroon, Chad and East Nigeria. So when I say that Ethiopian lions are mixed between these 2 clades, try to imagine them as being half-Kenyan (P. l. melanochaita) half-CAR (P. l. leo), as in Panthera leo leo × Panthera leo melanochaita, in the same way that ligers are Panthera leo × Panthera tigris.

From top to bottom, Addis Abeba Zoo (https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2012...-is-found/), Bale Mountans' National Park (https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/an...video.aspx), and Nechisar National Park (https://travel.jumia.com/blog/greener-la...-park-4121): 

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Note that both the Addis Abeba (https://link.springer.com/article/10.100...012-0668-5) and Bale lions were found to be genetically similar to Northern lions in the Central African countries of Chad and Cameroon, whereas lions in Nechisar National Park grouped with Southern lions, and because of where Bale and Nechisar are found in Ethiopia, amongst other national parks, Bertola et al. came to the conclusion that the ranges of the Northern and Southern subspecies overlap here to form a zone of admixture: https://media.nature.com/original/nature...807-s1.pdf

Nechisar National Park, which was determined to have Southern lions, is indicated with the red tag, whereas Bale Mountains' National Park, which was determined to have Northern lions, is named, and located to the east: https://www.google.com/maps/place/6°02'0...3333?hl=en 

As for the Gabonese lions in Batéké Plateau National Park (https://psmag.com/environment/the-forest-lion-of-gabon) and Franceville, and the closely-related lions from Odzala-Kokoua National Park in the Republic of Congo (a.k.a. Congo-Brazzaville), as per Barnett et al. (https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-north-e...5#pid66275), they are not members of what Bertola et al. would call the 'Central' clade of Northern lions, but they appear to be originally from Botswana or Namibia in Southern Africa, meaning that they are apparently descended from Southern African lions (Panthera leo melanochaita) that migrated to the Central African countries of Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville.

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Southern African lion in the Kalahari region, which is shared by Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, photo by Allison Buttigieg: http://www.alisonbuttigieg.com/border_galleries/lions/

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