Lion Galery: Barbary Lion

All of the photos in this gallery were taken in a controlled shoot in Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park on the Arizona/Utah border. For fans of the "Duke" this is where the calvary trilogy was filmed. The lion was provided by "Animals of Montana". His name is Mufasa and, as you can see, he is really photogenic. This sub species of lion (Barbary lion) is unfortunately no longer seen in the wild. The entire population is believed to be in the 200 to 500 range. Note that the mane goes completely under the animal to the back legs. He is truly Mufasa the magnificent. We hope that you enjoy the photos.

An Almost Perfect Predator (continue)

CAPTURING PREY 

A mountain lion is the personification of power, grace, strength, speed, and agility, largely due to heavy musculature attached to a light but strong skeleton. The majority of a cougar's body weight is muscle and sinew, with only a relatively small portion made up of bone and organs. Long, muscular legs and a flexible backbone allow strong extended strides, while its long, heavy tail provides balance on quick turns and uneven ground.(15) Horizontal leaps of 45 feet have been recorded, along with vertical leaps of 15 feet . This ability may be partly due to the fact that the cat's rear legs are longer than its front legs. An adaption for jumping is a valuable characteristic both for attacking prey and moving through the rugged terrain most cougars inhabit.(8) Further, the anatomy of a cougar's front limbs allows the animal to pivot sharply without losing lateral traction,(14) an important feature when grasping large prey at high speed.

The big cat is built for speed, not endurance. Writer Jim Bob Tinsley relates that, "It [the cougar] can easily outrun a pack of dogs for a few hundred yards, but its small lungs limit the distance it can cover at full stride. When out of breath, it must seek the temporary shelter of a tree or some other natural protection."(16) Ralph Schmidt, who works with Alberta lion researchers Martin Jalkotsy and Ian Ross, believes cougars are the fastest predator in North America. "I've seen cougars jump out of trees and run up a slope at an unbelievable rate of speed," says Schmidt, with a pronounced tone of respect.(17) Apparently no cougar has ever submitted to the stopwatch, but it is telling to consider that in some parts of the western United States, cougars have been known to occasionally kill pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), the fastest land animal in North America.(16, 18)

The skull is short and round, with 16 teeth in the upper jaw and 14 in the lower jaw.(6) Cougars have a powerful bite because of the reduced length of their jaws and their large jaw-closing muscles, the temporalis and masseter. Atop its skull, the cat has a bony ridge called the sagittal crest, which provides a large surface area for the attachment of the temporalis, the larger and stronger of the two muscles, and the one that lifts the jaw up and back. 

The other end of the temporalis attaches to the lower jaw. At a wide gape, such an arrangement gives the temporalis a greater mechanical advantage in driving the large canine teeth through the prey's muscle and bone. The masseter originates on the zygomatic arch, a bony arch on the side of the skull, attaches to the outside of the jaw, and lifts the jaw up and back. The masseter is more important as the jaws close at the end of the bite and when the cat uses its carnassials during feeding. Carnassials are modified molars and premolars that act as shears to cut through tough hide and tissue, which is why cats turn their heads to the side when they are biting through tissue while feeding. Cats do not chew their food, but rather use their carnassials to cut their prey up into small pieces or strips, which are swallowed whole.(13) Even the puma's tongue is specially adapted, with sharp, horny protuberances that help remove meat from bone and also aids in grooming.(21)

The cougar seems to tolerate the bitter cold of the Canadian north or the blistering heat of the Amazon equally well. Its remarkable physique is covered with a tawny coat that is short year-round in warmer climates but grows longer and thicker during the winter in temperate regions.(22)

DIET

Because cougars are one of the most widely ranging cats, their diet varies depending on the prey available; almost completely carnivorous, they rarely eat vegetation.(25) As noted, deer are at the top of the menu - mule deer in western North America and white-tailed deer in eastern North America.(6) Exactly how much of the lion's diet deer comprise varies with each state and province.(25) Mule deer are the primary prey in Oregon, Alberta, and Utah, while in Florida, white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) and wild hogs (Sus scrofa) are at the top of the menu.(26) Other large prey are taken as well. Hornocker found that cougars in the Idaho Primitive Area fed primarily on mule deer and elk (Cervus canadensis).(27) In Nevada, the ever-adaptable lion occasionally augments its diet with wild horses and desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis ).(28) Even moose (Alces alces) have been known to fall to the powerful cat in Alberta(29) and British Columbia.(30)

Opportunistic predators, cougars also feed on a variety of smaller prey, especially in times of seasonal abundance. Columbia ground squirrels are frequently the cat's main course during the warmer summer months in Idaho,(31) while during years of peak snowshoe hare abundance in British Columbia, over a quarter of the cougar's diet was composed of hares.(30) In the southwestern United States, peccaries (Tayassu tajacu) are taken.(6) Additional prey includes rabbits, marmots, beaver, porcupine, an assortment of birds, domestic livestock, and even carrion, as well as other carnivores, such as bobcats, coyotes, and other cougars.(18, 32)

The puma's dependence on smaller prey is more pronounced in South America. In Chile's Torres del Paine National Park, pumas subsist primarily on European hares (Lepus europaeus), followed by guanacos (Lama guanicoe) and domestic sheep (Yanez et al. 1986). Biologist Louise Emmons found that pumas in the jungles of Peru preyed on small rodents, oppossums, bats, and lizards. The majority of their prey were agoutis and pacas, rodents weighing 2 to 22 pounds.(34) The big cats are able to kill and eat most animals in their home range.

When the abundance of their primary prey declines, cougars have been known to switch their diet. This occurred in Big Bend National Park in western Texas, where cougars and male bobcats usually feed on deer. When the mule deer population crashed in 1980-1981, both cats were forced to switch to peccaries and lagomorphs (rabbits and hares), the next largest prey. (35)

Estimated frequencies of kill vary from 1 deer per 10 to 14 days(27) to 1 deer per 2 to 3 days.(36) As stated previously, females with dependent kittens require greater quantities of meat, quantities that increase as the kittens grow. Ackerman estimated the following kill rates for a resident female in southern Utah:

• Solitary resident female - 1 deer per 16 days
• Resident female with 3-month-old kittens - 1 deer per 9 days
• Resident female with three 15-month-old kittens - 1 deer per 3 days

Having evolved as an opportunistic predator, that may go without eating for days at a time, cougars exhibit fast-and-gorge feeding behavior. Captive cougars will eat 5 to 12 pounds of meat per day, more after deprivation, which is typical of this behavior.(25) Sensitive to spoilage, cougars seem to prefer their meat fresh, though they have been known to eat carrion when near starvation. In the warm temperatures of Arizona, spoilage of the carcass will typically restrict a cougar's use of a kill to no more than four days.(38) Kills can be fed on for longer periods in more temperate regions. This is a decided advantage during cold winters when metabolic demands are high. One researcher in Idaho observed a cougar remain with an elk carcass for 19 days during one particularly cold winter.(31)

PREDATORY BEHAVIOR

The prey is normally killed with a bite to the back of the neck at the base of the skull. The large canines are

inserted between the vertebrae like a wedge, forcing the vertebrae apart and breaking the spinal cord.(13) The speed with which this takes place indicates that the concentration of nerves in its canines allows the cat to "feel" its way to the vertebrae in a fraction of a second.(5) In the case of larger prey such as elk, the neck may be broken by pulling the head down and back, breaking it directly or in a fall.(45) If this fails the cougar may grasp the throat, crushing the windpipe. This necessitates death through asphyxiation and takes longer, exposing the cougar to possible injury.(6, 38) The efficiency of the kill will vary, depending on prey size, cougar size, angle of attack, and other circumstances. Hornocker found that cougars were successful 82 percent of the time in attacks on mule deer and elk in the Idaho Primitive Area.(27)

Renowned biologist Paul Errington believed that removal of some prey animals by predators increased productivity in the rest of the prey population by reducing overall competition. Thus, predation compensates for initial deaths by improving the chances of survival for other members of the herd. This concept, called compensatory mortality, is generally supported by research and is frequently cited in wildlife management circles as the theoretical rationale to support recreational hunting.(51) Current evidence seems to indicate that the losses of healthy or unhealthy deer to cougars are at least partly compensatory in nature.

Science can only take us so far in our examination of the cougar. Objective and empirical methods have revealed much about the lions' biology, but this is only one facet of the feline enigma. A broader perspective can be gained by going back in history, to a time when the division between fact and fable was less clear. It was a time before science, when the lives of Felis concolor and Homo sapiens were more intertwined than today. It was a time when the American lion was a god.

An Almost Perfect Predator

ANATOMY OF A HUNTER 

Thirty-five million years of evolution have honed Felis concolor into an almost perfect predator. The cougar's keen senses, muscular body, and remarkable adaptability make it ideally suited for a predatory existence. Because they are the most exclusive of meat-eaters, almost every feature of a cat's body is related to the way it detects and catches its prey.

DETECTING PREY 

The big cats use all of their senses in their ongoing search for prey. When the Florida panther stepped in front of my truck that night in the Everglades, and the eerie glint of its eyes flashed back at me, I was witness to a universal feature of feline legend. But the eyes of a cat are not windows to the fires of Hell, as witch hunters in the Middle Ages believed;(2) they are actually the marvelous adaptation of a nocturnal hunter

Cats have extraordinary vision. The eyeball, pupil, and lens are proportionately larger than other carnivores. The eyes of a domestic cat are only slightly smaller than those of humans, but the cat can open its pupil to a maximum area three times larger than humans can;(3) this increases light-gathering ability and enhances night vision. Cougars are both nocturnal and crepuscular (active during the twilight hours of dawn and dusk). As a result, their eyes are proportionately smaller than the mostly nocturnal lynx, making pumas suited to hunting both in daylight and at night.(4, 5) The amount of light entering the eyeball is controlled by the pupil, and the pupil in smaller cats is elliptical.

While a cougar's extraordinary vision seems to give it a distinct advantage over its prey, nature has a way of compensating for advantages. In humans, the high concentration of cones in our eyes allows us to resolve (discern) visual detail in daylight, while the low concentration of rods inhibits our ability to resolve detail in low light. This resolving power is called visual acuity. While the concentration of rods and the presence of a tapetum has increased the cat's sensitivity to low light, it has sacrificed visual acuity. Rods do not allow for much discrimination between light wavelengths, and the tapetum further blurs the image the cat sees. As a result, cats' vision at night is six times better than that of humans, but humans have better visual acuity.(1, 2, 3)

Further, in prey species such as deer, the eyes are mounted on the side of their head. This arrangement does not allow binocular vision but does increase the total field of view and the ability to detect predators.(7) Cats also have a heightened sensitivity to movement, and biologists believe that it is the movement of prey that triggers the puma to attack. This may explain why prey typically will "freeze" after detecting a predator.(6) In the world of predator and prey, there seems to be a defense for every offense.

Although little research has been done on hearing in cougars, it is known that domestic cats can detect their prey by sound as well as sight. They can hear frequencies in the ultrasonic range and are able to move their small, rounded ears together or independently to isolate these sounds. It is also believed that an enlarged auditory bullae (the portion of the skull surrounding the middle ear) may enhance a cat's sensitivity to certain sounds.(1, 3, 8)

Experts speculate that in most cats, vision and hearing are important for hunting, while smell plays a more active role in social behavior) In Chapter Three: Cougars at Home it was explained that pumas have a special olfactory organ in the roof of their mouth that is employed during a flehman response, presumably to determine the reproductive condition of a female.(11) Cougars also seem to share their domestic cousin's attraction to catnip.(8, 12) Smell, a well-developed feline sense, is not primarily used in hunting. However, "We probably underestimate how much cougars use their sense of smell," says Fred Lindzey, "I once saw a captive male picking up the scent of a deer." Lindzey thinks cougars probably do not use their sense of smell in hunting, but can generally use it to determine whether deer are in the area.(9) Bogue and Ferrari observed a six-month-old puma kitten follow a scent trail they laid down through undergrowth with a piece of hide from a freshly killed deer.(10) Nonetheless, dogs' sense of smell is much more highly developed. The longer muzzle of a dog boasts almost 50 square inches of olfactory cells to the cat's 6 square inches, and 5 percent of canine brain volume is committed to its sense of smell, compared to 3 percent in cats.(1)

Cats have an acute sense of touch, particularly with the tip of their nose, toes, and paws.(8) A cat's whiskers are specially adapted as tactile sensors; during prey capture they are extended like a net in front of the mouth so the cat can determine exactly where the prey is to accurately inflict the killing bite.(13) Barry Lopez tells of one biologist who believes that a cougar's paws are so sensitive that when it attacks deer in pitch black it can determine the location of the head by instantly sensing the direction its hair is growing.(14)

In Photos: A Lion's Life

Man-eaters

While lions do not usually hunt people, some (usually males) seem to seek out human prey. Well-publicized cases include the Tsavo maneaters, where 28 railway workers building the Kenya-Uganda Railway were taken by lions over nine months during the construction of a bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya in 1898; and the 1991 Mfuwe man-eater, which killed six people in the Laungwa River Valley inZambia.[75] In both, the hunters who killed the lions wrote books detailing the animals' predatory behavior. The Mfuwe and Tsavo incidents bear similarities: The lions in both incidents were larger than normal, lacked manes, and seemed to suffer from tooth decay.

A man-eating lion was killed by game scouts in Southern Tanzania in April 2004. It is believed to have killed and eaten at least 35 people in a series of incidents covering several villages in the Rufiji Delta coastal region.[76] This was attributed by some to the fact that the lion had a large abscess underneath a molar, which was cracked in several places, and probably resulted in a lot of pain, particularly when chewing.[77] This lion also lacked a mane.

In captivity

Widely seen in captivity, lions are part of a group of exotic animals that are the core of zoo exhibits since the late eighteenth century. Members of this group are invariably large vertebrates and include elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, large primates, and other big cats; zoos sought to gather as many of these species as possible.[83] There are over 1,000 African and 100 Asiatic lions in zoos and wildlife parks around the world. They are considered an ambassador species and are kept for tourism, education, and conservation purposes.

In the later decades of the twentieth century, larger, more natural enclosures and the use of wire mesh or laminated glass instead of lowered dens allowed visitors to come closer than ever to the animals, with some attractions even placing the den on ground higher than visitors, such as the Cat Forest/Lion Overlook of Oklahoma City Zoological Park.[20] Lions are now housed in much larger naturalistic areas; modern recommended guidelines more closely approximate conditions in the wild with closer attention to the lions' needs, highlighting the need for dens in separate areas, elevated positions in both sun and shade where lions can sit, and adequate ground cover and drainage as well as sufficient space to roam.[84]

There have also been instances where a lion was kept by a private individual, such as the lioness Elsa, who was raised by George Adamson and his wife Joy Adamson and came to develop a strong bonds with them, particularly the latter. The lioness later achieved fame, her life being documented in a series of books and films.

Baiting and taming

Lion-baiting is a blood sport involving the baiting of lions in combat with other animals, usually dogs. Records of it exist in ancient times up to the nineteenth century;[90] It was banned in Vienna in 1800 and in England in 1825.

Lion taming refers to the practice of taming lions for entertainment, either as part of an established circus or as an individual act. The term also often is used for the taming and display of other big cats, such as tigers,leopards, and cougars. 

Cultural depictions

The Lion Gate of Mycenae(detail)—two lionesses flank the central column that represents a goddess—c. 1300 B.C.E.renovation of an existing structure that was demolished to build the new

The lion is a popular symbol and mascot of high schools, colleges, and universities throughout the United States. This statue is on the campus of the University of North 

Lions Face Extinction in West Africa

Lions in West Africa are on the brink of extinction, new research suggests.

Fewer than 250 adults may be left in West Africa, and those big catsare confined to less than 1 percent of their historic range.The new study, in the journal PLOS ONE, suggests that without dramatic conservation efforts, three of the four West African lion populations could become extinct in the next five years, with further declines in the one remaining population, study co-author Philipp Henschel, the lion program survey coordinator for Panthera, a global wildcat conservation organization, wrote in an email. 

Threatened cat

The majestic lion once roamed throughout West Africa, from Nigeria to Senegal.

But as people have converted wild lands to pastureland, hunted the lion's traditional prey — antelopes, gazelles, wildebeest, buffalos and zebras — and gotten into conflicts with the animals, the big cat population has plummeted in West Africa.

Cash-strapped West African governments have put little money into lion conservation, in part because "wildlife tourism is quasi-absent in West Africa," Henschel said.

And research institutions have similarly neglected the region.

"Like wildlife tourists, most international research institutions and conservation organizations active in Africa also flock to the iconic game parks in East and southern Africa, meaning that lions faced a silent demise in West Africa over the past decades," Henschel told LiveScience. 

Massive survey

To remedy that, Henschel and his colleagues recently completed a massive, six-year survey of West Africa's lions, using remote cameras, interviews with people and counts of lion tracks. The survey, carried out between October 2006 and May 2012, builds on a smaller study done last year, which found shrinking savannas for lions in the region.

About 400 adult and juvenile lions existed in the region. And the wild cats, which were originally thought to have inhabited 21 separate regions, actually exist in just four. Their range is now confined to pockets in Senegal, Nigeria and the borderlands between Benin, Niger and Burkina Faso.

These isolated populations are also threatened due to reduced genetic variation.

Endangered status

To keep the lion from going extinct in Africa, governments and conservation organizations should boost budgets for conservation parks and personnel, to keep people from killing the lions' prey or the big cats themselves, Henschel said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature currently lists the lion as vulnerable in Africa. The West African lion is not considered a different species, so it is rated as regionally endangered, Henschel said.

But recent studies suggest the West African lions are genetically distinct from their brethren in other regions of the continent and are closely related to Barbary lions of North Africa and the few Asiatic lions left in India.

The genetic findings, combined with the dire survey results, suggest the West African lion should be listed as a critically endangered subspecies, or at the least, as a regionally critically endangered animal, Henschel said. 

King Lion Wild Nature Documentary

Rare White Lions Get Wild

A pride of white lions, including two adult males and two juvenile females, has been released into Sanbona Wildlife Reserve in South Africa's Western Cape Province.

The release is the culmination of a years-long White Lion Project, which was sponsored by the Shamwari Dubai World Africa Conservation team.

The white lions, also called blond lions, are the same species as African lions (Panthera leo). Their blondish-white coloring is the result of a recessive mutant gene. So cubs born to more tawny-colored lions could carry the recessive mutant gene (without showing a blond coat) and pass it on to future generations. Like most recessive genes, if an offspring gets two copies of that genetic mutation, the trait, such as blondness, will be expressed and show up.

According to the Project scientists, white lions were first spoted in the wild 400 years ago, then again in 1928, and then 50 years later a litter of two white cubs was documented at Timbvati Game Reserve in South Africa.

Even though white lions are rare in the wild, breeding programs, zoos and circuses have made more of them.

While the blond lions are a pretty sight in their wild environment, their coloring could belie health issues. That's because in order to maintain the white coloring, the lions had to be inbred, ensuring two copies of the recessive mutation would get passed down to offspring.

"The best way to try to create more of them is to inbreed them," Amato told LiveScience. "But then there are a lot of problems with inbreeding, because not only are you more likely to get two copies of that same mutation [for white coloring], you're also likely to get two copies of the rare deleterious mutations that all individuals have. That's generally why inbreeding is bad."

Members of the White Lion Project wanted to boost the genetic integrity of captive-bred white lions. To do this, the researchers bred the offspring of white lions with the tawny-colored variety.

Currently, the pride is being closely monitored by members of the Shamwari Dubai World Africa Conservation team. While the pride members may separate and wander, the pride released at Sanbona Wildlife Reserve's 100,000 acres (40,000 hectares) will ultimately reunite, the Sanbona scientists say.

Lions: Facts & Information

Lions are large felines that are traditionally depicted as the "king of the jungle." These big cats once roamed Africa, Asia and Europe. However, now they are found in only two areas of the world and are classified into two subspecies. Asiatic lions live in India's Gir Forest; African lions live in central and southern Africa. Though they look similar, these two subspecies are very different in size, habitat, diet and more.

Size & characteristics

The African lion is 4.5 to 6.5 feet (1.4 to 2 meters) long from its head to its rump, and its tail measures from 26.25 to 39.5 inches (67 to 100 centimeters) long. African lions typically weigh 265 to 420 lbs. (120 to 191 kilograms). 

Asiatic lions tend to be much bigger, according to the World Wildlife Federation (WWF). They weigh 300 to 500 lbs. (120 to 226 kg) and are 6.56 to 9.18 feet (200 to 280 cm) long. Their tails measure 23.62 to 35.43 inches (60 to 90 cm).

Male lions are generally larger than females and have a distinctive mane of hair around their heads. The mane's function is to make the male look more impressive to females and more intimidating to other males, according to the San Diego Zoo. The mane also protects the male's neck during fights over territory or mating rights.

Habits

Lions are very social cats and live in groups called prides. Asiatic and African lion prides are very different, though.

African lion prides consist of up to three males, around a dozen females, and their young, according to National Geographic. There are prides that have as many as 40 members, though. 

Asian lions divide themselves into two prides. The females have a pride and the males have a pride. They only come together during mating season.

With both types of lion prides, the females stay put. All of the females in a pride are usually related to each other because females tend to stay with the pride in which they are born. Males, on the other hand, wander off to create their own pride when they are old enough.

This video talk about the behavior of lions living in which people love, very awesome!!!

Offspring

At 3 to 4 years old, males and females are ready to mate. The female has a gestation period of around four months. She will give birth to her young away from others and hide the cubs for the first six weeks of their lives. At birth, the cubs are only around 3 lbs. (1.5 kg). They are also completely dependent on their mother.

All of the females in a group of lions mate at the same time. After the first six weeks, the cubs are taken care of by all of the females and will often nurse from females other than their mother, according to the San Diego Zoo.

Conservation status

Lions face threats from hunting, habitat loss and diseases that can be spread from domestic dogs in nearby villages, according to the National Zoo.

African lions are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. This is because their numbers are decreasing. Their current population is estimated at 30,000 to 100,000. The population has been almost cut in half in the past two decades because of retaliatory killings by farmers (whose livestock the lions eat), as well as from trophy hunting and habitat loss.Asiatic lions are in a much more perilous position as human encroachment has reduced their habitat. The IUCN lists them as endangered and says only about 350 of them exist. This group includes only about 175 mature individuals.

Other facts

Females are the main hunters of the pride. They form hunting parties to round up the fast animals found in their habitat. 

Lions also go toe-to-toe with animals much larger than themselves. Lions can kill animals that weigh up to 1,000 lbs., according to theSmithsonian National Zoo. To kill their prey, lions use their powerful jaws to snap the prey's neck or to strangle it to death.

Male African lions that are trying to take over a pride will kill all of the cubs to avoid competition. 

Lions and tigers are so closely related that if you shaved them you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. Their body structure is so similar only experts can tell them apart, according to the Smithsonian. Lions are also related to leopards and jaguars.

Though mountain lions (pumas) are in the same family (Felidae) as Asiatic and African lions, they are not considered lions.

According to the WWF, lions can run up to 50 mph (80 kph) for short distances and leap as far as 36 feet (11 m).

Why do lions hunt in packs?

It’s down to the different prey types and landscapes in which they hunt. Lions stalk the open savannah in Africa, preying on the zebra, antelope and wildebeest that live in herds. With hundreds of pairs of eyes and ears listening out for danger there are very few places for a hunter to hide. A group can hunt more effectively by stalking the herd from several directions at once, encircling it. Tigers, meanwhile, live in dense jungle where lines of sight are short and it’s much easier to lie in wait for an ambush or creep up within pouncing distance without being seen. Indeed, a group of tigers hunting together would just increase the likelihood of spooking their prey and, unlike some cats, tigers don’t have the stamina for a prolonged chase, so they normally abandon an attack if they are spotted too early.

Lion among 23,000 species threatened with extinction!!!

The mighty lion, reclusive cave crabs and the world’s rarest sea lion are among nearly 23,000 species at risk of dying out. In an update to its “Red List” of threatened species, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) hailed some clear advances in saving endangered species such as the Iberian lynx.
But, it warned, those successes have been overshadowed by declines in a range of species, with 22,784 animals and plants threatened with extinction.

Following six decades of decline, the population of the Iberian lynx, considered the world’s most endangered feline, has seen its numbers swell from only 52 adult cats in 2002 to 156 a decade later, IUCN said.
The species has seen its population balloon from 200-500 individuals in the 1950s to around 20,000 in 2010.The lion remains listed as vulnerable at a global level, with its western African subpopulation listed as “critically endangered” due to over-hunting and dwindling prey.

Rapid decline has also been recorded in eastern Africa, which historically has been a stronghold for lions, IUCN said, warning that trade in bones and other body parts for traditional medicine in Africa and in Asia was a new and emerging threat to the species.

And it pointed to the New Zealand sea lion – one of the rarest sea lion species in the world – which now is listed as “endangered”, due mainly to disease and changes to its habitat caused by fishing.

 Lion Out of Africa? Why are all the lions disappearing

IUCN also warned that two species of crab, Karstama balicum and Karstama emdi, found only in a single cave on the island of Bali, are now considered “critically endangered”, as they have been increasingly threatened by growing tourism and numerous religious ceremonies held in the cave.

The Barbary Lion Really Go Extinct

Barbary, or Atlas, lions once roamed throughout the deserts and mountains of northern Africa, ranging from Morocco to Egypt, far to the north of their sub-Saharan relatives. The largest lion subspecies, Barbary lions were once upon a time admired for their size and dark manes (although those two qualities have been greatly exaggerated and almost mythologized over time) and were kept by the royal families of Morocco and other north African nations. 

Why does it matter exactly when the Barbary lion went extinct? Black and his co-authors say this research has relevance for the conservation of the rest of Africa's lions. Small, fragmented populations in certain regions could require additional attention to ensure their survival. The authors also advocate against declaring any species as extinct too quickly. Doing so, they say, could remove any incentive to keep looking for and conserving that species, thereby pushing it into the same fate as the Barbary lion.

 Regardless of when it happened, Barbary lions are without a doubt extinct in the wild, but could they still exist in captivity? Several zoos around the world claim to have Barbary lions in their collections. In all likelihood most if not all of these big cats are not real Barbary lions but rather hybrids with lions from sub-Saharan Africa. "I seriously doubt pure north Africa lions occur in captivity anymore," Luke Hunter, president of Panthera, the conservation organization dedicated to big cats, told me last October when I first started investigating this story.

Whether or not the remaining Royal lions are pure, efforts are underway to both preserve their genetic diversity and prevent inbreeding. Black says controlled breeding—and a studbook that he helped create—will ensure that the population will remain healthy. "Several additional zoos in Europe have taken on collections of these animals, and new breeding pairs have been established in the hope of increasing the population from the current level of approximately 80 animals," he says. "New cubs have been born in the past two years, so momentum for conserving the population has been reestablished after a lull of 20 years."

We may never know the truth about when the Barbary lion disappeared, but it's possible that the story of the Barbary lion is still being written.