African Lion

The pride-living apex predator of Africa's grasslands and savannahs, listed as Vulnerable since 1996.

The lion (Panthera leo) is a big cat in the genus Panthera, and nearly all wild lions today live in Sub-Saharan Africa, with one further population in western India. Built with a deep chest, a short rounded head and a dark tuft on the tail, it shows clear differences between the sexes: males are bigger and carry a mane over the head, shoulders and chest. Lions live in grasslands, savannahs and shrublands, where they act as apex and keystone predators of hooved mammals. They are the most social of the wild cats, living in prides, and have been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996.

Quick Facts

Scientific name: Panthera leo
Status: Vulnerable (IUCN, since 1996)
Habitat: Grasslands, savannahs, shrublands
Social unit: Pride
Described: 1758, by Carl Linnaeus

Facts from the source article.

Background

Carl Linnaeus described the lion as Felis leo in 1758 in Systema Naturae, and Lorenz Oken coined the genus name Panthera in 1816. The oldest fossils recognisable as lions come from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania and may be up to 2 million years old. Around 1 million years ago lions spread from Africa into Eurasia, giving rise to the separate cave lion lineage. Within Africa, rainforest expansion split eastern and southern populations from those in the west and north, and a growing Sahara later divided western and northern groups. In 2017 the Cat Classification Task Force settled on two subspecies: P. l. leo in West Africa, northern Central Africa and Asia, and P. l. melanochaita in East and Southern Africa.

Did You Know?

Ethiopia appears to be a contact zone where the two lion subspecies meet.
Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire.
The name Panthera goes back to a classical Latin word and an ancient Greek word for panther.
In the Neolithic, lions ranged across Africa and Eurasia from Southeast Europe to India.