Meaghan Edwards

Sultan

1914 photograph of Sultan the lion.
what type is he? Is he a Abyssinian Lion? How come no zoos keep this type of lion and just African and Asiatics? Are Abyssinian Lions extinct?
 
what type is he? Is he a Abyssinian Lion? How come no zoos keep this type of lion and just African and Asiatics? Are Abyssinian Lions extinct?

if you are referring to Barbary, there are some in captivity but there are questions over that are the hybrids or not. they are extinct in the wild tho
 
The impressive mane in a zoo lion from the early 1900's brings up an interesting point (well, interesting to cat lovers like me). There is no question that as a general rule (with a few minor exceptions here and there), zoo lions have larger manes than wild lions. This brings up the debate: is it due to breeding for that trait or is it due to environmental factors?

I am going to vote for the latter, that the relatively stress-free (and thorn-bush free) zoo life allows manes to naturally grow bigger. My main reason for saying this is that I read somewhere that zoo manes have always been bigger, even in the late 1800's and early 1900's when most lions were wild-caught. Obviously they would not have had generations of selective breeding for mane size at that point in time. This old postcard clearly illustrates this. The famed African hunting guide Frederick Selous noted way back then that his clients were often disappointed at the puny mane size of their trophies compared to the lions they had seen at zoos back home.
 

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