Southwest African lion

Katanga lion
Male Southwest African lion in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
Southwest African lioness in Etosha National Park, Namibia.
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Clade: Synapsida
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Suborder: Feliformia
Family: Felidae
Genus: Panthera
Species: P. leo
Subspecies: P. l. melanochaita
Trinomial name
Panthera leo melanochaita
(Ch. H. Smith, 1842)

The Southwest African lion (Panthera leo melanochaita) is a lion population in Africa that was once considered a distinct subspecies under the scientific name Felis leo bleyenberghi. The type specimen was a male lion collected in the Katanga Province of Belgian Congo and described on the basis of its fur in 1914 by Einar Lönnberg.[1][2]

Characteristics

Males are around 2.50–3.10 m (8.2–10.2 ft) long including the tail. Females are 2.30–2.65 m (7.5–8.7 ft). The weight of males is generally 140.0–242.0 kg (308.6–533.5 lb), and the females are 105.0–170.0 kg (231.5–374.8 lb). They have a shoulder height of 0.9–1.2 m (3.0–3.9 ft). Their manes tend to be lighter in color than those of other lions.

On record, the longest wild lion apparently was a male shot near Mucusso, southern Angola, in October 1973, which measured nearly 360 cm (11.8 ft), in total.[3]

Distribution

In southwestern Africa lions occur in Namibia, Angola and northern Botswana. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, they are considered regionally extinct.[4]

Ecology and behaviour

Lions prefer to hunt large ungulates including zebras, warthogs, blue wildebeest, impalas, gemsbok, Thomson's gazelles, kobs, giraffes and buffaloes. They predominately hunt prey in the range of 40.0 to 270.0 kg (88.2 to 595.2 pounds).[5]

In captivity

A small captive population of 29 lions were registered by the International Species Information System. These animals are derived from animals which were captured in Angola and Zimbabwe.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lönnberg, E. (1914). "New and rare mammals from Congo". Revue de Zoologie Africaine (3): 273–278.
  2. ↑ Haas, S.K.; Hayssen, V.; Krausman, P.R. (2005). "Panthera leo" (PDF). Mammalian Species. 762: 1–11. doi:10.1644/1545-1410(2005)762[0001:PL]2.0.CO;2.
  3. ↑ Nowell, K.; Jackson, P. (1996). "Panthera leo". Wild Cats: Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan (PDF). Gland, Switzerland: IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group. pp. 17–21. ISBN 2-8317-0045-0.
  4. ↑ Bauer, H.; Packer, C.; Funston, P.F.; Henschel, P. & Nowell, K. (2015). "Panthera leo". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2017-1. International Union for Conservation of Nature.
  5. ↑ Hayward, M.W. and Kerley, G.I. (2005). Prey preferences of the lion (Panthera leo). Journal of Zoology 267(3): 309–322.
  6. ↑ Barnett, R.; Yamaguchi, N.; Barnes, I. & Cooper, A. (2006). "The origin, current diversity and future conservation of the modern lion (Panthera leo)". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 273 (1598): 2119–25. PMC 1635511 Freely accessible. PMID 16901830. doi:10.1098/rspb.2006.3555.
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