Lions Try Hard for Mating Day and Night

“Recognizable by its black-maned appearance, the Cape lion was once native to Africa’s southern Cape region.”

This wild cat is a member of the subspecies Panthera leo melanochaita. For centuries, it lived in relative peace and isolation on the South African plains. Following the arrival of European settlers, however, it endured decades of constant hunting and harassment, causing numbers to dwindle. The conservation status of this lion is considered to be functionally extinct in the wild since 1858 (though scattered individuals were found up to a few decades later).

A Subspecies That Has Been the Subject of Debate

The taxonomy of the Cape lion (as well as other lion populations) has been the subject of much-extended controversy. For centuries, the Cape lion was considered to be its own distinctive subspecies of lions. But then a genetic analysis in 2017 revealed that the Cape lion may not be quite as distinct as once thought. Genetically, it is almost completely similar to other lion populations of southern and eastern Africa. This suggests there may have been significant interbreeding between the populations that prevented them from developing independently of each other. All lions in the southern and eastern regions of Africa are now considered to be part of the same subspecies.

Lions Try Hard for Mating Day and Night

 

 Lions Try Hard for Mating Day and Night