Asiatic LionPanthera leo persicus

Asiatic LionPanthera leo persicus
Size: Weight: Male 160-190 Kg; Female 110-120 Kg. Length (head and body): Male 170-250 cm; Female 140-175 cm. The largest Asiatic Lion on record measured 2.9 m from nose to tail-tip. Shoulder height: Male 100-123 cm; Female 80-107 cm.
Habitat and Distribution: Dry scrubland and open deciduous forest habitats. This species used to be found across the whole of Northern Africa, south west Asia and northern Greece. Today, there are only around 350 individuals left, found only in the Gir forest reserve in Gujarat, northern India.
Age: Females live on average 17-18 years whilst males live for around 16 years. In captivity, they can live up to 30 years.
Groups and Breeding: Lions are sociable and often live in large groups known as prides (although some are nomads living alone or in pairs). These prides consist of related females and their young, together with a coalition of 1-4 males. The females are responsible for catching most of their food and hunt together in packs.
When lions mate, the females are ‘super fecund’, this means that they can mate with more than one male and the cubs that are subsequently born in the same litter can have different fathers. During a mating bout, which could last several days, the couple frequently copulate twenty to forty times a day and are likely to forego hunting. In captivity lions reproduce very well. Gestation lasts 100-119 days and the female gives birth to a litter of one to six cubs. The females in a pride often synchronize their reproductive cycles so that they cooperate in the raising and suckling of the young. Cubs are weaned after six to seven months, but competition for food and infanticide from males taking over prides means that in the wild, 80 per cent. of cubs die before the age of 2 years.
Diet: These are carnivorous animals and will feed on almost any animal from rodents through to large ungulates. However, larger animals such as deer, antelope, wild boar, and buffalo form the largest part of their diet. An adult female lion needs about 5 kg of meat per day, a male about 7 kg but they can gorge up to twice this amount when food is scarce.
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Did you know ?
# In 2005 only 359 individual Asiatic Lions were found in the wild. Possible reasons for such small numbers include hunting for the hide, sport and their claws, poisoning and conflict with humans for attacking livestock, loss of habitat and threats by floods, fires and epidemics.
#Lions can reach speeds of about 37 miles per hour, but they lack the stamina to be long-distance runners, so they have to come within about 30m of their prey before starting their attack.
#A lion's roar can be heard up to 6 miles away. This is used to let other members of the pride know where they are and to mark their territory to other males.
#A lion’s mane is thought to make it look bigger and therefore deter other potential predators and also makes them more attractive to females. Scientists have discovered that females prefer males with fuller and darker manes. The Asiatic Lion’s mane is smaller than an African Lion’s and does not hide its ears.
#Lions are very territorial and can have bitter fights for land and for dominance of the prides. Many lions bear deep scars and teeth marks from fights.
#During the breeding season, lions can mate up to 700 times!
#A lion’s territory can be up to 150 square miles, depending on availability of prey species and peer pressure. They will mark their boundaries with urine and faeces.
#Lions may spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping to get away from the heat of the day and to preserve energy for the following day’s hunting.
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Panthera leo persicus is Asiatic lion

Asiatic lion
Scientific name: Panthera leo persicus
Country: India
Continent: Asia
Diet: Asiatic lions feed on wild pigs, cattle, antelope and deer in the wild. At the Zoo they are fed meat, raw eggs and a smear of marmite a week, to get a balance of vitamins. They are fed 6 days out of 7, as this reflects their natural behaviour in the wild where they would not successfully catch prey every day.
Food & feeding: Carnivore
Habitats: Tropical dry forest, tropical grassland, desert and semi-desert.
Conservation status: Critically Endangered
Relatives: African lion, Tiger, Domestic cat
Description: Asiatic lions have a shaggier coat than their African counterparts, and both sexes have a distinctive fold of skin that runs along the belly. They have a longer tassel of hair on the end of the tail and longer tufts of hair on the elbows. Males are 1.7-2.5 m long and weigh 150-250 kg. While females are 1.4-1.75 m in length and weigh in at 120-182 kg. Like all cats they are equipped with powerful retractable claws and long sharp canine teeth that are used in dragging their prey to the ground.
Lifestyle: Like African lions, hunting is a cooperative affair but adult males rarely participate. If vegetation is sparse, hunting usually takes place at night, but where it is thick, it may also take place during the day. The lions use stealth to approach their prey and then charge and either grab or knock it down before it outruns them. Only one in about four charges ends successfully. Lions are inactive for most of the day, spending up to 20 hours per day resting or sleeping.
Family & friends: Like their African cousins, Asian lions are highly social animals, living in units called prides. However, the Asiatic pride is much smaller, with an average of only 2 females compared to the African pride, which has an average of four to six. The males are also less social and only associate with the pride when mating or on a large kill. It has been suggested that this may be because of the smaller prey available in Gir. Small prey mean less animals are needed to hunt them down, and there would be less meat to share between more lions if the prides were larger.
Keeping in touch: As you can often hear when walking by Bristol Zoo Gardens in the late evening, Asiatic lions often communicate by roaring late in the day and into the night.
Growing up: Females reach sexual maturity at 2 to 4 years of age. They normally have 2 to 4 cubs after a gestation period of 100-119 days. The cubs start eating meat at about 3 months of age while continuing to suckle for up to 6 months. They spend 9 months perfecting their hunting techniques, become independent aged one and reach maturity at 3 to 4 years. Cub mortality is high, up to 80% may die before 2 years of age. They can live for about 17 years in the wild and up to 24 in captivity.
Did you know?
Although fearsome predators, Asiatic lions in the past have rarely attacked humans. But in recent years attacks on humans have been on the increase. The reason seems to be that restricting the entry of cattle that previously roamed the park has left the lions lacking a key food source, and hungry lions sometimes look to humans, whose numbers in the area have increased dramatically, for their next meal.
Conservation news
Conservation news: The Asiatic lion was once found in Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Middle East and most of India. It became extinct in Europe around 100 A.D. and in Palestine around the time of the Crusades. It remained widespread until the time of the advent of firearms in the mid 1800s, which led to widespread extinction through hunting as a sport. In 1900, the Nawab of Junagadh, the local ruler, declared the few remaining lions of the Gir forest in India protected animals. The Nawab told everyone that there were only 20 remaining to prevent people from going to the Gir to hunt them. The population was estimated to be around 100 between 1968 and 1979 but is now thought to be more than double this. However, the forest is now approaching the limit of the number of lions that it can support and other safe havens for Asiatic lions in India are sorely needed. One suggested location is the Barda Hills near Porbandar. The Gir Forest is a dry deciduous forest in Gujarat, western India. Its wildlife sanctuary is 545 square miles with only the central 100 square miles completely protected as a National Park. About 7,500 Maldhari people and their 14,000 cattle live in the Forest Sanctuary, with a further 160,000 people and 100,000 cattle living within 6 miles of the Sanctuary. As there are so few Asiatic lions, it is necessary to manage the captive and wild populations if the species is to recover. It is essential to ensure that all the lions are pure bred and that pairs are not closely related to one another. Bristol Zoo Gardens is actively involved in this programme.
Animals at Bristol Zoo
Our Asiatic lions are Moti (female) and Chandra (male). Moti was born at Helsinki Zoo in July 1994 and came to Bristol Zoo Gardens in 1996. Chandra was born at Chester Zoo in October 1994 and came to us from Cotswold Wildlife Park in 1996. Two cubs were born at Bristol Zoo Gardens in August 1998, Indi and Dacca, and a third in August 2001, Aiesha. They have since grown up and moved to other Zoos as part of a conservation breeding programme, coordinated by London Zoo.

landmark lion study in UK

Doha researcher contributes to landmark lion study in UK
Publish Date: Saturday,5 April, 2008, at 01:52 AM Doha Time

Yamaguchi with a model of a lion’s skull

Staff Reporter

A RESEARCHER at Qatar University (QU) has contributed to a landmark study which recorded the first genetic evidence that England’s first lions hailed from North Africa where the species is extinct in the wild today.Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, assistant professor of Animal Ecology at QU’s Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, was a member of a team of researchers from London’s Natural History Museum and Oxford University.

The mission centred on two lion skulls found during excavations at the Tower of London. The lions were part of the Royal Menagerie, a collection of animals also including leopards, bears and other exotic animals that were probably gifts to English monarchs.

The examination of the mitochondrial DNA of well preserved skulls and analysis of the jawbones of the two lions revealed that they shared unique genes with the North African Barbary lion.

The link was further strengthened by the comparison of the skulls with Asiatic and North African Barbary lion skulls that are preserved in natural history collections in the UK and Europe.

Radiocarbon dating of the skulls showed them to be from the 13th to 15th centuries, making them the earliest confirmed lion remains in Britain since the extinction of the Pleistocene cave lion. According to Yamaguchi, historic records show that lions could be found from North Africa through the Middle East to India until the growth of civilisations along the Egyptian Nile and Sinai Peninsula almost 4,000 years ago stopped gene flow, isolating the lion populations.

“Western North Africa was the nearest region to Europe to sustain lion populations until the early 20th century, making it an obvious and practical source for mediaeval merchants. Apart from a tiny population in northwest India, lions have been practically exterminated outside sub-Saharan Africa by the turn of the 20th century,” he explained.The Barbary Lion, which lived in North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, is now extinct in the wild. There are about 40 in captivity in Europe, with less than a 100 in zoos around the world.

Commenting on the study, Yamaguchi observed that through such research he is seeking to improve the quality of his teaching which in turn will have great benefits for his students at QU in terms of raising their level of interest in the sciences and in research. “Good research really helps teaching and more efforts need to be injected in supporting it,” he said.'>