West African lion
| West African lion | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
West African lion (male) in Pendjari National Park |
||||||||||||
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Panthera leo senegalensis | ||||||||||||
| ( Meyer , 1826) |
The West African Lion ( Panthera leo senegalensis ), also Senegal lion or Senegal Lion called, is a subspecies of the lion . At the beginning of 2014, the game population amounted to around 400 animals that live in some small areas in southern West Africa . The IUCN lists the subspecies as " Critically Endangered ", which means it is rated as the most endangered of the existing subspecies.
features
In contrast to other subspecies of the lion, the West African lion often has only a sparse mane . Furthermore, the animals are usually more delicate than the subspecies of eastern and southern Africa .
distribution
Originally distributed in large areas of West Africa south of the Sahara to Central Africa, the West African lion can only be found in a few protected areas . These are individual, non-contiguous areas in Senegal , Nigeria and possibly in Guinea . The largest contiguous distribution area, in which about 90 percent of the total population live, is the WAP complex (W-Arly-Pendjari) with the three national parks W , Arly and Pendjari in the border area of Burkina Faso , Niger and Benin .
Further lion populations, which are traditionally included in the West African lion, are said to be found in the states of Cameroon , Chad and the Central African Republic . In 2005, the stocks there were small, severely fragmented and declining. Genetic analyzes showed that lions from the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , from Sudan and South Sudan , from northern Ethiopia and from northern Uganda are also relatively closely related to the West African lions and are very different from the South and East African lions.
Web links
- Panthera leo West Africa subpopulation in the Red List of Threatened Species of IUCN , 2015. Posted by: Henschel, P., Farmer, H., Sogbohoussou, E. & Nowell, K., 2015. Accessed December 10, 2015.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Katrin Blawat: King under pressure . Published on January 15, 2014 in Die Süddeutsche . Accessed December 10, 2015.
- ^ Lions 'facing extinction in West Africa' . Published January 14, 2014 by BBC News. Accessed December 10, 2015.
- ↑ Only 400 lions still live in West Africa . Published on January 14, 2014 by n-tv . Accessed December 10, 2015.
- ↑ Haas, SK; Hayssen, V .; Krausman, PR Mammalian species - Panthera leo. 2005 Mammalian Species (762): 1-11. pdf
- ↑ Bertola, L., de Longh, H., Vrieling, K. (2011). Researchers confirm West and Central African lion is different from other lions . University of Leiden. Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML). Faculty of Science. Last Modified: 01-04-2011.