Talk:Lion

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Range Map

The range map shows the historic (rather than the prehistoric Pleistocene) range of the lion as including Spain, Portugal, southern France, Italy, and much of western Asia as far north as the Caucasus region. I am aware of the presence of lions in ancient Greece, and in some parts of the Middle East during antiquity. However, the presence of lions in the other northern regions (as shown in this map) during historic times is inaccurate.

Does anyone have any source that shows otherwise? This webpage makes the claim that the lion inhabited those areas (in a later section), but does not give any source. The "European Lion" wikiarticle gives only one source claiming lions inhabiting those regions during historic times. However, it is a website on ancient Greek coins rather than an informed source (.http://rg.ancients.info/lion/lions.html). It only addresses the lion's range in passing in a single sentence and has no references or sources.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.246.125.24 (talk) 01:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Changed the range in Southern Europe to question marks in response to controversy on reliability of sources.

--188.221.198.220 (talk) 20:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Lions hunting a Buffalo

Shouldn't we use the following picture from commons to illustrate lions hunting buffalos in Botswana?

Lions hunting buffalos in Okavango Delta, Botswana

TSBr (talk) 14:33, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh that's a nice image. I'll try to incorporate it. Alphard08 (talk) 09:48, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

heads

The "heads" section had this text:

Cave paintings of extinct European Cave Lions exclusively show animals with no head, or just the hint of a head, suggesting to some that they were more or less headless;[28] however, females hunting for a pride are the likely subjects of the drawings—since they are shown in a group related to hunting—so these images do not enable a reliable judgment about whether the males had heads. The drawings do suggest that the extinct species used the same social organization and hunting strategies as contemporary lions.

This uses a circular reasoning: a) the cave lion paintings show animals without heads, however these were probably paintings of hunting lions, so they must be female, as with contemporary lions only females hunt; b) since the pictures depict only females, it is proof for the same social organization as contemporary lions. -- As can be seen, if a) fails, b) fails as well. It may be headless males hunting, for all we know. Also, the whole "however" is without citing sources, and chunky, the cave paintings do not show groups of lions hunting, but just individuals. Also, that last sentence has no place in a section called "heads". For these reasons, I removed the whole "however (...)" part. Jalwikip (talk) 20:29, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

'Agreed, I would hardly consider a cave painting to be an accurate depiction/reference to an animals physical characteristics or hunting behavior. I am rather annoyed at myself for not catching it. ZooPro 21:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Proposal: Remove all "National symbols of XX" Categories

And instead attach them to Lion (heraldry) or Cultural depictions of lions, depending on the circumstances. --Kevlar (talk • contribs) 03:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Semiprotection

Seriously, this article will always cop alot of vandalism. The real problem with articles this size is when it gets hit by a couple of IPs in a row and someone reverts the second vandal. It's a huge article and trying to clean up a year or so down the track can be frustrating. Okay, it's getting reverted now pretty promptly but this will continue every day (not sure about school holidays though) and sooner or later there'll be a hiccup. We had to clean up Humpback whale a couple of years ago with huge chunks of text gone bye-byes. Yes it's only one click to revert, but aren't there a truckload of things to revert? I have this idea that if there were less reverting needed, recent change patrollers would slow down a bit and maybe we'd get more done. Unfortunately editor time is a precious resource. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks yes more time seems to be spent on reverting then actual editing, i welcome the protection. ZooPro 00:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Heartily agree. My devandalization work here is approaching 50% of my time, especially as regards pages about "cute and cuddly" animals, like Red Panda, Tiger, and so on. And we haven't even mentioned the Ape and Elephant articles. Lion was protected for a year, and as soon as the protect was lifted just days ago, the kids went to work. It wouldn't break my heart to see dozens of mammal articles protected in perpetuity. After all, we do have real work to do. --Seduisant (talk) 00:25, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree we should protect the cute and cuddly articles. ZooPro 00:34, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Panthera Leo Abyssinica

I removed

* Panthera Leo Abyssinica, a species of Ethiopian lion, the males of which have distinctive black manes.

from Black Lion (disambiguation) for lack of coverage in the accompanying article. BTW, it sounds like a sub-species.
--Jerzy•t 23:16, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Error in footnotes

There's a typo in the footnote 45. The author of the paper is Craig Packer, not Parker. I'd fix it, but the article is protected. Chrisjthompson (talk) 05:59, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:20, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Etymology

"it shows a striking resemblance to Sanskrit pundarikam "tiger," which in turn may come from pandarah "whitish-yellow".

Sanskrit words for tiger include: "vyāghraḥ, śārdūlaḥ, dvīpin." (Apte's English-Sanskrit Dict). Panther is also 'dvīpin'. There is a word puṇḍarīka meaning 'lotus'. Monier-Williams records that ancient Indian lexicographers link puṇḍarīka to "a tiger" but that it is *not found in practice* - one has to pay attention to the abbreviations in MW the 'L.' in particular! Note that Harper only suggests a comparison with puṇḍarīka not a cognative link. He's not very familiar with Sanskrit and often makes small errors in his suggested connections to Sanskrit - though his dictionary is very useful on the whole. Whatever resemblance there is between the words, it is far from "striking" to anyone familiar with Sanskrit or the principles of historical linguistics.

In fact the common word for 'lion' in Sanskrit (and in fact all North Indian languages) is siṃha. You can see this in the surname of Sikhs Anglicised as 'Singh' and in the name 'Singapore' (Skt Siṃha-pura 'the lion city').

English 'lion' is most likely a Semitic loan word; the Greek lēon has no Sanskrit or Avestan/Persian cognate, while the Hebrew and Egyptian are similar. QED.

So perhaps someone with edit rights could change the article? mahaabaala (talk) 15:31, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Tree Climbing Lions :- The true Lion Kings on their Throne Unique to Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park - Ishasha Sector

{{editsemiprotected}} Although Lions do not normally climb trees as a habit and may sometime do this when being chased by another lion group or wild buffalo. The unique exception to this is that in Queen Elizabeth National Park - Ishasha Sector of Uganda one finds the Tree Climbing Lions. They climb tree and rest on them during afternoons, when the sun is high. This is truly unique as it doesn't happen else. There have been similar sightings rarely in Lake Manyara National Park of Tanzania. It is truly a wonder to see the King of the Forest - Lions up a tree making it their high throne. Perhaps Uganda's Queen Elizabeth National Park hosts the true Lion Kings which are the Tree clibing lions of its Ishasha Sector.

 Not done Provide reliable sources, and it can be added. CTJF83 pride 16:31, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Main photo of male lion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:African_Lion_Panthera_leo_Male_Pittsburgh_2800px.jpg

That photo is kinda stupid because.. lions do not naturally live in snow!!! remove that shit and replace it with a majestic wild lion...

I think the same, maybe this image? Tbhotch^{Talk C.} 23:19, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I thought that was funny as well. It ought to be replaced, Lions wouldn't naturally be in snow at all I don't think. Probably they couldn't survive in such cold conditions if the lion didn't have a warm place to sleep at night (in the zoo). Hvatum (talk) 02:06, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Male Lion as "Leader" of the Pride

This photo http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b8/Pride_leader.jpg/180px-Pride_leader.jpg with its caption "Mature male pride leader With two lionesses, northern Serengeti" is directly contradicted by the article and almost everything else I've ever read about lions. This is like old encyclopedias that talked about the "king bee". There is no meaningful way in which a male lion is the leader of a pride. He's an auxiliary fighter, a sometime hunter and a mate. Lions are not people or even wolves, they have their own social organization and the article makes it clear that the females do the "lion share" of the hunting, the care of cubs and "lead" the defense of the pride as much as the male lion could be said to do so. The caption could more honestly read, "Two lionesses and a mature male lion of a pride, northern Serengeti." Halfelven (talk) 01:38, 8 July 2010 (UTC)