African lion

		African lion
		He is a wild animal


Origin			Sub-Saharan Africa
Translation			Francis Vandersteen

The possession of this animal is not authorized Royal Decree establishing the list of mammals not kept for production purposes that may be kept (M.B. 24.08.2009)

The African lion is a subspecies of lion. Traditionally divided into a dozen different subspecies, African lions now form a single subspecies. Genetic analysis has reduced the number of lion subspecies to two: the Asiatic lion and the African lion.

The African lion now includes the following former subspecies:
Atlas lion (Panthera leo leo)
Northeastern Congo lion or Cameroon lion (Panthera leo azandica)
Katanga lion (Panthera leo bleyenberghi)
The Congo lion (Panthera leo hollisteri)
The Transvaal lion (Panthera leo krugeri) of South Africa
The Maasai lion (Panthera leo massaicus), found in Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and as far south as Mozambique
The Cape lion (Panthera leo melanochaita): extinct since 1865, in 2000, specimens from Siberia were found to be Cape lions
Senegal lion (Panthera leo senegalensis)

The African lion can be distinguished from the Asiatic lion by its more abundant mane and the almost systematic absence of a skin pouch (a gusset) extending under the belly to the hind legs, very common in the Asiatic lion. The African lion generally has a thinner coat and a shorter tuft of hair at the tip of the tail than the Asian lion.

Although the lion's distribution was more restricted in historical times, it was nevertheless significant. It covered large parts of Africa, as well as southern Europe, the Near East and India. As far back as antiquity, lions lived in the Balkans, southern Europe, Anatolia and the Middle East, and are mentioned by many contemporary authors (Herodotus, Aristotle and the Bible, among others). In Europe, the lion is thought to have disappeared as a result of human activity in the 1st century AD.

The spread of the African lion is largely limited to sub-Saharan Africa. However, there have been no lions in southern Africa since the 1860s, when the former subspecies of the Cape lion (Panthera leo melanochaita) became extinct. In North Africa, the former Atlas lion subspecies became extinct in the 1920s.

Lions are highly adaptable and live in many different habitats. The lion's preferred natural habitat is the savannah, but it can also be found in dry forests and semi-deserts. However, it is never found in dense, humid forests or arid deserts. Consequently, the species is naturally absent from the Central African rainforests and the driest deserts of North Africa and the Near East.