Misplaced Pages

#924075

45-549: A black-maned Sudan lion was described from this river. 14°46′N 33°51′E  /  14.767°N 33.850°E  / 14.767; 33.850 This article related to a river in Ethiopia is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Sudan lion Panthera leo leo is a lion subspecies present in West Africa , northern Central Africa and India . In West and Central Africa it

90-588: A population , or a species ( extinct or extant ). Clades are nested, one in another, as each branch in turn splits into smaller branches. These splits reflect evolutionary history as populations diverged and evolved independently. Clades are termed monophyletic (Greek: "one clan") groups. Over the last few decades, the cladistic approach has revolutionized biological classification and revealed surprising evolutionary relationships among organisms. Increasingly, taxonomists try to avoid naming taxa that are not clades; that is, taxa that are not monophyletic . Some of

135-479: A "ladder", with supposedly more "advanced" organisms at the top. Taxonomists have increasingly worked to make the taxonomic system reflect evolution. When it comes to naming , this principle is not always compatible with the traditional rank-based nomenclature (in which only taxa associated with a rank can be named) because not enough ranks exist to name a long series of nested clades. For these and other reasons, phylogenetic nomenclature has been developed; it

180-481: A Lion Conservation Strategy was developed for West and Central Africa. Contemporary lion distribution and habitat quality in savannahs of West and Central Africa was assessed in 2005, and Lion Conservation Units (LCU) mapped. Educated guesses for size of populations in these LCUs ranged from 3,274 to 3,909 individuals between 2002 and 2012. The last populations of the West African lion clade are surviving in

225-446: A branch of mammals that split off after the end of the period when the clade Dinosauria stopped being the dominant terrestrial vertebrates 66 million years ago. The original population and all its descendants are a clade. The rodent clade corresponds to the order Rodentia, and insects to the class Insecta. These clades include smaller clades, such as chipmunk or ant , each of which consists of even smaller clades. The clade "rodent"

270-623: A clade can be described based on two different reference points, crown age and stem age. The crown age of a clade refers to the age of the most recent common ancestor of all of the species in the clade. The stem age of a clade refers to the time that the ancestral lineage of the clade diverged from its sister clade. A clade's stem age is either the same as or older than its crown age. Ages of clades cannot be directly observed. They are inferred, either from stratigraphy of fossils , or from molecular clock estimates. Viruses , and particularly RNA viruses form clades. These are useful in tracking

315-731: A few protected areas from Senegal in the west to Nigeria in the east. This population has lost 99% of its former range. Between 246 and 466 lions live in the WAP-Complex , a large system of protected areas formed mainly by W , Arli , and Pendjari National Parks in Burkina Faso , Benin , and Niger . It is regionally extinct in Mauritania , Gambia , Guinea-Bissau , Mali , Sierra Leone , Ivory Coast , and Togo , and possibly extinct in Guinea and Ghana . The border between

360-468: A historical lion sample from Sudan showed that it clustered with P. l. leo in mitochondrial DNA -based phylogenies, but with a high affinity with P. l. melanochaita . The taxonomic position of lions in Central Africa may therefore require revision. The lion's fur varies in colour from light buff to dark brown. It has rounded ears and a black tail tuft. Average head-to-body length of male lions

405-447: A lesser extent also on waterbuck, crested porcupine ( Hystrix cristata ), bushpig, roan antelope, olive baboon ( Papio anubis ) and oribi ( Ourebia ourebi ). In India's Gir Forest National Park, lions predominantly kill chital ( Axis axis ), Sambar deer ( Rusa unicolor ), nilgai ( Boselaphus tragocamelus ), cattle ( Bos taurus ), domestic buffalo ( Bubalus bubalis ) and less frequently also wild boar ( Sus scrofa ). Outside

450-567: A lion in the Niokolo-Koba National Park in Senegal has given birth to three cubs, two males and a female. The park is aiming to increase the lion population to 50 lions by the end 2025, before doubling that population in the 5 years after that. Clade In biological phylogenetics , a clade (from Ancient Greek κλάδος (kládos)  'branch'), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group ,

495-422: A revised taxonomy based on a concept strongly resembling clades, although the term clade itself would not be coined until 1957 by his grandson, Julian Huxley . German biologist Emil Hans Willi Hennig (1913–1976) is considered to be the founder of cladistics . He proposed a classification system that represented repeated branchings of the family tree, as opposed to the previous systems, which put organisms on

SECTION 10

#1732775675925

540-450: A single male. In Waza National Park, three female and two male lions were radio-collared in 1999 and tracked until 2001. The females moved in home ranges of between 352 and 724 km (136 and 280 sq mi) and stayed inside the park during most of the survey period. The males used home ranges of between 428 and 1,054 km (165 and 407 sq mi), both inside and outside the park, where they repeatedly killed livestock. One

585-401: A sufficient wild prey base, make lion-human coexistence sustainable and reduce factors that lead to further fragmentation of populations. Surveys and interviews with herders around protected areas revealed that improved enclosures for livestock significantly decreased depredation by lions, and hence contributed to mitigating human-lion conflict. The effect of lion trophy hunting and whether it

630-429: A suffix added should be e.g. "dracohortian". A clade is by definition monophyletic , meaning that it contains one ancestor which can be an organism, a population, or a species and all its descendants. The ancestor can be known or unknown; any and all members of a clade can be extant or extinct. The science that tries to reconstruct phylogenetic trees and thus discover clades is called phylogenetics or cladistics ,

675-584: Is regionally extinct in North Africa , southern Europe , and West Asia . Asia's sole lion population lives in and around Gir National Park , India. The West African lion population is geographically isolated and numbers fewer than 250 mature individuals. It is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List . A lion from Constantine, Algeria , was the type specimen for the specific name Felis leo used by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. In

720-851: Is 2.47–2.84 m (8 ft 1 in – 9 ft 4 in) with a weight of 148.2–190.9 kg (327–421 lb). Females are smaller and less heavy. Zoological lion specimens range in colour from light to dark tawny. Male skins have short manes, light manes, dark manes or long manes. Taxonomists recognised that neither skin nor mane colour and length of lions can be adduced as distinct subspecific characteristics. Then they turned to measuring and comparing lion skulls and found that skull length of Barbary and Indian lion samples does not differ significantly, ranging from 28–31.17 cm (11.02–12.27 in) in females and 33.8–36.2 cm (13.3–14.3 in) in males. A few lion specimens from West Africa obtained by museums were described as having shorter manes than lions from other African regions. In general,

765-546: Is a grouping of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree . In the taxonomical literature, sometimes the Latin form cladus (plural cladi ) is used rather than the English form. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics , a modern approach to taxonomy adopted by most biological fields. The common ancestor may be an individual,

810-448: Is a sustainable conservation measure, has been discussed controversially. In 2016, a group of authors recommended a quota for lion trophy hunting of one lion per 1,000 km (390 sq mi) in the WAP protected area complex, and to refrain from imposing an import embargo of lion trophies from this region. This recommendation was questioned and strongly opposed, with the argument that

855-476: Is in turn included in the mammal, vertebrate and animal clades. The idea of a clade did not exist in pre- Darwinian Linnaean taxonomy , which was based by necessity only on internal or external morphological similarities between organisms. Many of the better known animal groups in Linnaeus's original Systema Naturae (mostly vertebrate groups) do represent clades. The phenomenon of convergent evolution

900-515: Is responsible for many cases of misleading similarities in the morphology of groups that evolved from different lineages. With the increasing realization in the first half of the 19th century that species had changed and split through the ages, classification increasingly came to be seen as branches on the evolutionary tree of life . The publication of Darwin's theory of evolution in 1859 gave this view increasing weight. In 1876 Thomas Henry Huxley , an early advocate of evolutionary theory, proposed

945-672: Is restricted to fragmented and isolated populations with a declining trajectory. It has been referred to as the northern lion . Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that lion populations in West and Central African range countries are genetically close to populations in India, forming a major clade distinct from lion populations in Southern and East Africa . In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of

SECTION 20

#1732775675925

990-489: Is still controversial. As an example, see the full current classification of Anas platyrhynchos (the mallard duck) with 40 clades from Eukaryota down by following this Wikispecies link and clicking on "Expand". The name of a clade is conventionally a plural, where the singular refers to each member individually. A unique exception is the reptile clade Dracohors , which was made by haplology from Latin "draco" and "cohors", i.e. "the dragon cohort "; its form with

1035-483: The IUCN Cat Specialist Group subsumed lion populations according to the major clades into two subspecies, namely P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita . Within P. l. leo three subclades are clearly distinguishable. One from Asia, which includes the extinct Barbary lions of North Africa, another one from West Africa and a third one from Central Africa, north of the rainforest belt. P. l. leo

1080-530: The melanochaita group in East and Southern Africa. Samples from West Africa shared alleles with samples from Southern Africa, and samples from Central Africa shared alleles with samples from Asia. This indicates that Central Africa was a melting pot of lion populations after they had become isolated. They possibly migrated through corridors in the Nile Basin during the early Holocene . Genome -wide data of

1125-443: The political insecurity in the region posed a threat to the area's lion population. Poaching of lions by paramilitary forces has been reported by local people living in the vicinity of Ethiopia's Gambella National Park. Local people around Chebera Churchura National Park kill lions, leopards ( Panthera pardus ) and spotted hyenas ( Crocuta crocuta ) using traps to retaliate against attacks on their livestock. Surveys in

1170-672: The rainy season when wild prey disperses away from artificial waterholes. In Africa, lions are killed pre-emptively or in retaliation for preying on livestock. Populations are also threatened by depletion of prey base, loss and conversion of habitat. The lion population in West Africa is fragmented and isolated, comprising fewer than 250 mature individuals. It is threatened by poaching and illegal trade of body parts. Lion body parts from Benin are smuggled to Niger, Nigeria, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea, and from Burkina Faso to Benin, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea. In Nigeria,

1215-469: The 19th and 20th centuries, several lion zoological specimens from Africa and Asia were described and proposed as subspecies : In 1930, Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the lion to the genus Panthera when he wrote about Asiatic lion specimens in the zoological collection of the British Museum of Natural History. In the following decades, there has been much debate among zoologists on

1260-551: The Central African Republic's Chinko area revealed that the number of lions decreased significantly between 2012 and 2017 after transhumant pastoralists from the border area with Sudan moved into the area. Rangers found multiple lion cadavers and confiscated large amounts of poison in the camps of livestock herders. They were accompanied by armed merchants who also engaged in poaching large herbivores, sale of bushmeat and trading lion skins. In India,

1305-608: The West African and the Central African lion clade is following largely the lower Niger River, which seems to act as a permanent barrier for gene flow. The Central African lion population inhabits protected areas of: The Asiatic lion is the last surviving population of this clade. Once also found in the Middle East, it is nowadays confined in the wild to Gujarat in India. Genetically, the extinct lions from Northern Africa, formally termed as Barbary lions , fall into

1350-617: The West African lion is similar in general appearance and size as lions in other parts of Africa and Asia. Skeletal muscles make up 58.8% of the lion's body weight. Today, P. l. leo occurs in West and Central Africa and India. It is regionally extinct in The Gambia , Mauritania , Sierra Leone , the Western Sahara , Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia , Kuwait , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , Turkey, Palestine , Israel , Iraq, Iran and Pakistan . In 2005,

1395-779: The estimate for lion population size in the WAP region is not reliable and therefore the suggested quota inappropriate. In 2006, 1258 captive lions were registered in the International Species Information System, including 13 individuals originating from Senegal to Cameroon, 115 from India and 970 with uncertain origin. In addition, several lions kept in Ethiopia's Addis Ababa Zoo were thought to be genetically similar to wild lions from Cameroon and Chad. They also differed from lions kept at Sana'a Zoo , which were suspected to be of Ethiopian origin. Genetic research did not corroborate this result, but placed these lions in P. l. melanochaita . In 2023,

Rahad River - Misplaced Pages Continue

1440-508: The isolated lion population in Gashaka Gumti National Park is hunted and poisoned by local people. The lion population in Central Africa is threatened by loss of habitat and prey base and trophy hunting . Between seven and 12 lion trophies were exported from Cameroon every year between 1985 and 2010. In Bénoué National Park, local people were observed at a lion kill cutting off chunks of meat. Local people living in

1485-518: The latter term coined by Ernst Mayr (1965), derived from "clade". The results of phylogenetic/cladistic analyses are tree-shaped diagrams called cladograms ; they, and all their branches, are phylogenetic hypotheses. Three methods of defining clades are featured in phylogenetic nomenclature : node-, stem-, and apomorphy-based (see Phylogenetic nomenclature§Phylogenetic definitions of clade names for detailed definitions). The relationship between clades can be described in several ways: The age of

1530-752: The lion is protected, and included in CITES Appendix I . African lions are included in CITES Appendix II . In 2004, it was proposed in 2004 to list all lion populations in CITES Appendix I to reduce exports of lion trophies and implement a stricter permission process, due to the negative impact of trophy hunting. In 2006, a Lion Conservation Strategy for West and Central Africa was developed in cooperation between IUCN regional offices and several wildlife conservation organisations. The strategy envisages to maintain sufficient habitat, ensure

1575-622: The protected area where wild prey species do not occur, lions prey on buffalo and cattle, rarely also on Arabian camel ( Camelus dromedarius ). They kill most prey less than 100 m (330 ft) away from water bodies, charge prey from close range and drag carcasses into dense cover. Lions probably prey on livestock when wild prey species occur at lower densities, especially during the wet season. An interview survey among livestock owners in six villages in Waza National Park's vicinity revealed that lions attack cattle mostly during

1620-482: The relationships between organisms that the molecular biology arm of cladistics has revealed include that fungi are closer relatives to animals than they are to plants, archaea are now considered different from bacteria , and multicellular organisms may have evolved from archaea. The term "clade" is also used with a similar meaning in other fields besides biology, such as historical linguistics ; see Cladistics § In disciplines other than biology . The term "clade"

1665-734: The same clade as the Asiatic lion. Therefore, the range of this lion clade encompassed historically North Africa, southeastern Europe , the Arabian Peninsula , the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent. In these regions, lions occurred in: The Barbary lion population in North Africa is extinct since the mid 1960s. The Asiatic lion population survives in Gir Forest National Park and remnant forest habitats in

1710-479: The same sites. Females associate with up to 12 females forming a stronger pride together with their cubs. They share large carcasses among each other, but seldom with males. Female and male lions usually associate only for a few days when mating , but rarely travel and feed together. In Pendjari National Park, groups of lions range from 1–8 individuals. Outside the National Park, groups are smaller and with

1755-630: The two groups. The two lion groups overlap in Ethiopia, as lion samples from Bale Mountains National Park clustered with lion samples from Central Africa, whereas other samples from this country clustered with samples from East Africa. Three clades can be distinguished within P. l. leo . Lion samples from North Africa and India clustered into a single clade, and the lions in West Africa and northern parts of Central Africa also form distinct clades. Analysis of phylogenetic data of 194 lion samples from 22 countries revealed that Central and West African lions diverged about 186,000–128,000 years ago from

1800-415: The two hill systems of Gir and Girnar that comprise Gujarat 's largest tracts of dry deciduous forest , thorny forest and savanna. It is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List because of its small size and area of occupancy . Male Asiatic lions are solitary or associate with up to three males forming a loose pride. Pairs of males rest, hunt and feed together, and display marking behaviour at

1845-562: The validity of proposed subspecies: In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group subsumed lion populations in North, West and Central Africa and Asia to P. l. leo , based on results of genetic research on lion samples. Since the beginning of the 21st century, several phylogenetic studies were conducted to aid clarifying the taxonomic status of lion samples kept in museums and collected in

Rahad River - Misplaced Pages Continue

1890-537: The vicinity of the protected area accounted in interviews that lions frequently attack livestock during the dry season. They use poison on carcasses to kill carnivores. In Waza National Park, two of four radio-collared lions were killed between 2007 and 2008, and probably also an adult female, two other adult males and three cubs. Nomadic herders use bow and arrows poisoned with cobra venom to kill lions in retaliation for attacks on livestock. In northern parts of Cameroon, increased migration of people from Nigeria following

1935-511: The wild. Scientists analysed between 32 and 480 lion samples from up to 22 countries. They all agree that the lion comprises two evolutionary groups, one in the northern and eastern parts of its historical range, and the other in Southern and East Africa ; they are estimated to have genetically diverged between 245,000 and 50,000 years ago. Tropical rainforest and the East African Rift possibly constituted major barriers between

1980-423: Was coined in 1957 by the biologist Julian Huxley to refer to the result of cladogenesis , the evolutionary splitting of a parent species into two distinct species, a concept Huxley borrowed from Bernhard Rensch . Many commonly named groups – rodents and insects , for example – are clades because, in each case, the group consists of a common ancestor with all its descendant branches. Rodents, for example, are

2025-1238: Was killed and the other shot at by local people. After the pellets were removed, he recovered and shifted his home range to inside the park, and was not observed killing livestock any more. In general, lions prefer large prey species within a weight range of 190–550 kg (420–1,210 lb). They hunt large ungulates in the range of 40–270 kg (88–595 lb) including gemsbok ( Oryx gazella ), Cape buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ), blue wildebeest ( Connochaetes taurinus ), giraffe ( Giraffa camelopardalis ), common eland ( Tragelaphus oryx ), greater kudu ( T. strepsiceros ), nyala ( T. angasii ), roan antelope ( Hippotragus equinus ), sable antelope ( H. niger ), zebra ( Equus quagga ), bushpig ( Potamochoerus larvatus ), common warthog ( Phacochoerus africanus ), hartebeest ( Alcephalus buselaphus ), common tsessebe ( Damaliscus lunatus ), Thomson's gazelle ( Eudorcas thomsonii ), waterbuck ( Kobus ellipsiprymnus ) and kob ( K. kob ). Analysis of 119 faecal samples of lions collected in Cameroon's Faro National Park revealed that lions preyed foremost on kob and harnessed bushbuck ( Tragelaphus scriptus ), and to

#924075