The Challenges and Relevance of Exploring the Genetics of North Africa's "Barbary Lion" and the Conservation of Putative Descendants in Captivity.

ABSTRACT: The lions of North Africa were unique in ecological terms as well as from a human cultural perspective and were the definitive lions of Roman and Medieval Europe. Labelled "Barbary" lions, they were once numerous in North Africa but were exterminated by the mid-20th century. Despite subsequent degeneration of the Atlas Mountain ecosystem through human pressures, the feasibility of lion reintroduction has been debated since the 1970s. Research on the long-established captive lion collection traditionally kept by the sultans and kings of Morocco has enabled selective breeding coordinated across Moroccan and European zoos involving a significant number of animals. Molecular genetic research has recently provided insights into lion phylogeny which, despite previous suggestions that all lions s

SUBMITTER: Black SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5021484 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature