The southwest African lion, also known as the Katanga lion (Panthera leo bleyenberghi), was itself a subspecies of the Southern African lion, at least until 2016 when over the course of a couple of years the classifications changed several times.
Currently, because of recent genetic testing, there are now two subspecies of lion which do not appear to be labeled yet. One subspecies (Panthera leo leo), which includes what used to be labeled the Asian, West Africa, Central African and North African (now extinct) subspecies, are all lumped together under one subspecies. The other subspecies (Panthera leo melanochaita) includes what used to be labeled the Cape lion (now extinct), Southern African and East African (which I've previously blogged on) subspecies, which themselves were broken down into different categories.
We saw these lions in Etosha National Park in Namibia, near the Gemsbokviakte waterhole. We were alerted to their presence by a number of vehicles lined up viewing one in the grass.
Then we left and came back later and found a different lion about 40 yards away next to the waterhole, then while we watched, the lion from the grass walked over to and joined the lion by the waterhole.
It's such a charge to see a lion in the wild. Too bad we didn't see a few more on this trip, right?
ReplyDelete