From Ice Age to Savannah: Tracing the Journey of Lions Through Time
Pallav Moitra
Lions didn’t originally come from Africa or Asia.
Surprising, right? The earliest ancestors of modern lions (Panthera leo) actually came from the vast Eurasian steppes. These ancient big cats, known as cave lions (Panthera spelaea) roamed across Europe and parts of Asia during the Pleistocene epoch, which lasted from about 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago.
From Natural History Museum Vienna
2800-year-old female Cave Lion cub found on the banks
of the River Semyuelyakh in Siberia
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The Lost Lions of North Africa
Once
roaming proudly across the Maghreb desert and the Atlas Mountains, from Morocco
to Egypt, the Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo), also known as the Atlas
lion, was a symbol of strength and majesty. These lions weren’t just
iconic—they were also the ancestors of both Asiatic lions and several African
lion subspecies.
Tragically,
about a century ago, Barbary lions disappeared from the wild, driven to
extinction by trophy hunting. Today, only a few remain in captivity at zoos.
They share a close genetic connection with the Asiatic lions, whose last wild
home is in India’s Gir Forest and the nearby Barda sanctuary in Gujarat.
In
Africa, Atlas lions once adapted to different environments, giving rise to
several subspecies grouped according to their natural habitats. Interestingly,
all African lions today are thought to descend from this North African lineage,
with the Asiatic lion being its closest living relative.
Showing the present distribution of the Lion Population across Asia and Africa
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