The Lion Stalks Tonight

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion probably does not sleep tonight.

The main reason for this is that lions don't really live in the jungle. Their primary habitat is savannah and open grasslands and while they can be found found in dry woodland (especially in India) they aren't found in the tropical rainforests that we typically associate with the word "jungle". Indeed, a map of Africa showing where you can find lions would have a very noticeable gap in the middle where the Congo jungle is - along, of course, with blank spaces over the harsher deserts. The idea of lions living in dense jungle probably owes more to Tarzan than reality.

Were 'Cave Lions' Really Lions?

A theme that crops up on this blog every now and then is that some animal that many people probably assume is a single species is actually two or more. There are, for example, three species of zebra, three jackals, and seven different kinds of musk deer. The lion (Panthera leo) is not one of these animals; there really is only one species alive today - and it's been around for a long, long time.

I remember a few years ago, at London Zoo, I happened to be passing the lion enclosure when one of the keepers was giving a talk. The lions at the zoo were obtained from the Gir Forest in Gujarat, India, rather than being the African sort. The keeper repeatedly referred to "this species" of lion when, for example, he was indicating how much more endangered the Indian population is than the African one.