Talk:Asiatic lion

message: Since the late 19th century, several authors wrote about wildlife in Afghanistan:
*Scully (1887) described skins of several species collected in the country, but NOT a single one of a lion.
*Kinnear (1920) wrote: .
*Pocock (1939) wrote: , see page 213.
*Members of the 1965 Street Expedition to Afghanistan did NOT come across a single lion in the country, but collected skins of mammals in several bazaars and also shot wildlife during their journey Hassinger (1973).
*The Afghani wildlife biologist Habibi (1977 & 2004 (revised edition)) wrote the 1st book about mammals of Afghanistan, but did NOT account of lion in the country.
I have a few more refs re no lion in Afghanistan. Therefore : referring to the country in the lead is erroneous. Should I add all these refs to main page, e.g. in a separate section? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I am also not seeing any mention of Afghanistan on the IUCN page, so not sure what Ddum5347 is on about here. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: On the IUCN's page for the lion, on the "Geogrpahic Range" portion, it clearly states Afghanistan as a country the lion is extirpated from. Link:https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/15951/115130419 Ddum5347 (talk) 19:55, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Apart from the doubtfulness of that statement (which runs contra just about every other literature source), there is no indication that this would have been the Asiatic lion (ssp. persica), so this is misleading in this article. Please stop the edit-warring now until this is figured out. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

text:  The IUCN page on the Asiatic lion doesn't mention Afghanistan, while the page for the lion does (without a timeframe). We can debate which is more relevant. But I note that Afghanistan was added to the range in the article while keeping the existing source. It would help if additions were sourced (with a proper citation that can be followed rather than a rude edit summary). —  Jts1882 | talk  20:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

text: I fully agree that we need positive evidence !! Before you go on wondering, here is a hunter lore:
*In the early 1920s, big game hunter Arthur Stannard Vernay participated in an expedition to India to collect wildlife; at the Baluchistan-Persian border he was told , cited by Harper 1945. The only authors who considered it plausible that lion might have occurred in the country were Heptner & Sludskii (1992),  who referred to Harper (1945), see footnote there. Whereas others like Ellerman & Morrison-Scott (1951) and Nowell & Jackson (1996) decided to not fall for the hunter lore. Therefore I think, the lion iucn assessors' logic is : if it had occurred, it was extirpated before anyone wrote about it. But authenticated evidence does not exist that lion ever entered the country, i.e. no skin found in a bazaar, no lion sighted nor shot at any particular place in the country. The 19th century natural historians -- Blyth, Sterndale, Jerdon -- would have known about it. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  No lion in Afghanistan 

message: "Buddhist monks, or possibly traders, possibly brought descriptions of sculpted lions guarding the entry to temples in China."
This doesn't make sense. "Buddhist monks, or possibly traders, possibly brought descriptions of sculpted lions guarding the entry to temples in India" would make more sense because the "sculpted lions" must be gate guardians for Indian temples in order for descriptions to be brought to China.  Better still, "Buddhist monks, or possibly traders, possibly brought to China descriptions of sculpted lions guarding the entry to Indian temples", however I'm disinclined to make a second edit after my first was reverted, lest the wiki overlords accuse me of edit-warring. 148.252.132.73 (talk) 02:50, 12 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of Fo-lions 

message: Genetic research clearly indicates, that the Asiatic lion (together with the extinct North African lions) forms not just a "population" (whatever that is in taxonomy) but a distinctive subclade of the Northern lion. I would add this to the topic. In every case, we should delete the "population". That is in my opinion not a scientific term.--Altaileopard (talk) 13:02, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Population or subclade