Atlas Lion

		Atlas Lion
		He is a wild animal


Origin			North 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 Atlas Lion, also known as the Barbary Lion, is a subspecies of lion now extinct in the wild. It was once found throughout North Africa. The last wild specimens disappeared around the middle of the 20th century. Fewer than a hundred Atlas lions remain in captivity.

The Atlas bear and the Barbary leopard, North Africa's other two main predators, are now extinct and close to extinction respectively.

The Atlas bear is characterized by a mane that is much more voluminous than that of its African cousins, very dark, even black, extending to the middle of the belly. This mane is thought to be due to its more temperate environment, and is therefore not a reliable means of identifying the subspecies. The adult Atlas lion has a length of 3.30 to 3.60 m, a withers height of 1.20 m and weighs between 200 and 240 kg. The gestation period for lionesses is 100 to 116 days, with 2 to 4 cubs per litter. Atlas lions are thought to live up to 30 years.

The Romans used Barbary lions in their amphitheatres for gladiatorial combat. In the Middle Ages, the lions kept in the menagerie of the Tower of London were Barbary lions, as proved by DNA tests on the two well-preserved skulls in the tower in 1937. The skulls have been radiocarbon dated to AD 1280-1385 and AD 1420-1480. Dr Nobuyuki Yamaguchi of the Wildlife Conservation Unit at Oxford University, said that the growth of civilizations along the Nile and Sinai Peninsula in the early 2nd millennium BC had isolated lion populations. Until around 100 years ago, the lion survived in the wild in north-west Africa, corresponding to the countries of Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. The last wild specimen was probably shot in 1942 at Taddert (on the northern slopes of the Tizi n'Tichka), or disappeared when the forests north of Sétif were destroyed in 1958.

Although this subspecies is considered extinct in the wild, some 90 specimens (mainly descendants of lions from the Royal Menagerie in Rabat, Morocco) are still kept in certain zoological parks, such as those in Rabat, Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in the UK, Madrid, Parc zoologique des Sables-d'Olonne, Parc Zoologique de Paris... All these latest Atlas lions could be "hybrids", perhaps counting African (sub-Saharan) lions among their ancestors. The Rabat zoological garden has been preserving a population of around 22 lions for several years. These lions are seeing their numbers increase (3 births in December 2011).