Panthera leo nubica
| Barbary lion | |
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| A male Barbary lion photographed in Algeria by Alfred Edward Pease in 1893. | |
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| Lioness and cubs, New York Zoo, 1903. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Feliformia |
| Family: | Felidae |
| Genus: | Panthera |
| Species: | P. leo |
| Subspecies: | P. l. leo |
| Trinomial name | |
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Panthera leo leo (Linnaeus, 1758) |
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| Synonyms | |
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The Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo) is the nominate lion subspecies in North Africa. In Algeria, Egypt, Libya, and Morocco, lions are regionally extinct due to excessive hunting. The last recorded shooting of a wild Barbary lion took place in Morocco, near Tizi n'Tichka in 1942. Small groups of lions may have survived in Algeria until the early 1960s, and in Morocco until the mid-1960s.
Alfred Edward Pease referred to the Barbary lion as the North African lion, and claimed that the population had diminished since the mid-19th century, following the diffusion of firearms and bounties for shooting them. Some authors referred to it as the Berber lion occurring from the Atlas Mountains to Egypt. Since it inhabited the Atlas Mountains, it was also known as the Atlas lion.
Results of morphological and genetic analyses of lions warrant the designation of lion populations in North, West and northern parts of Central Africa to the subspecies P. l. leo, which differ genetically from P. l. melanochaita in Eastern and Southern Africa.
A lion from Constantine, Algeria was the type specimen for the specific name Felis leo used by Linnaeus in 1758. In the 19th century, several African lion specimens from North Africa were described and proposed as subspecies:
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