East African lion instance of taxon
Taxonomy
Felis (Leo) melanochaitus was the scientific name proposed by Charles Hamilton Smith in 1842 who described a lion specimen from South Africa's Cape Province. In the 19th and 20th centuries, several naturalists described zoological specimens from Southern and East Africa and proposed the following subspecies:Felis leo somaliensis (Noack 1891), based on two lion specimens from Somalia
Felis leo massaicus (Neumann 1900), based on two lions killed near Kibaya and the Gurui River in Kenya
Felis leo sabakiensis (Lönnberg 1910), based on two male lions from the environs of Mount Kilimanjaro
Felis leo roosevelti (Heller 1913), a lion from the Ethiopian Highlands presented to Theodore Roosevelt
Felis leo nyanzae (Heller 1913), a lion skin from Kampala, Uganda
Felis leo bleyenberghi (Lönnberg 1914), a male lion from the Katanga Province of Belgian Congo
Leo leo hollisteri (Joel Asaph Allen 1924), a male lion from the area of Lime Springs, Sotik on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria
Leo leo krugeri (Austin Roberts 1929), an adult male lion from the Sabi Sand Game Reserve named in honour of Paul Kruger
Leo leo vernayi (Roberts 1948), a male lion from the Kalahari collected by the Vernay-Lang Kalahari Expedition
Panthera leo webbensies Ludwig Zukowsky 1964, two lions from Somalia, one in the Natural History Museum, Vienna that originated in Webi Shabeelle, the other kept in a German zoo that had been imported from the hinterland of Mogadishu.Dispute over the validity of these purported subspecies continued among naturalists and curators of natural history museums until the early 21st century.
In the 20th century, some authors supported the view of the Cape lion being a distinct subspecies. In 1939, the American zoologist Allen also recognized F. l. bleyenberghi, F. l. krugeri and F. l. vernayi as valid subspecies in Southern Africa, and F. l. hollisteri, F. l. nyanzae and F. l. massaica as valid subspecies in East Africa.Pocock subordinated the lion to the genus Panthera in 1930, when he wrote about Asiatic lions. Ellerman and Morrison-Scott recognized only two lion subspecies in the Palearctic realm, namely the African P. l. leo and the Asiatic P. l. persica. Various authors recognized between seven and 10 African lion subspecies. Others followed the classification proposed by Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, recognizing two subspecies including one in Africa.In the 1970s, the scientific name P. l. vernayi was considered synonymous with P. l. krugeri. In 1975, Vratislav Mazák hypothesized that the Cape lion evolved geographically isolated from other populations by the Great Escarpment. In the early 21st century, Mazák's hypothesis about a geographically isolated evolution of the Cape lion was challenged. Genetic exchanges between populations in the Cape, Kalahari and Transvaal Province regions and farther east are considered having been possible through a corridor between the Great Escarpment and the Indian ocean.In 2005, the authors of Mammal Species of the World recognized P. l. bleyenberghi, P. l. krugeri, P. l. vernayi, P. l. massaica, P. l. hollisteri and P. l. nyanzae as valid taxa. In 2016, IUCN Red List assessors subsumed all African lion populations to P. l. leo. Two lion subspecies are now recognised:
P. l. melanochaita is understood as comprising lion populations in the contemporary Southern and East African range countries,
P. l. leo comprises lion populations in North, West and Central Africa and Asia.Genome-wide data of a wild-born historical lion sample from Sudan clustered with P. l. leo in mtDNA-based phylogenies, but with a high affinity to P. l. melanochaita. This result indicates that the taxonomic position of lions in Central Africa may require revision.
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