Panthera leo
(Linnaeus, 1758) · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Panthera leo's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation22 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility2 204 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI53 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics95 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The lion (Panthera leo) is a large cat of the genus Panthera native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body, short, rounded head, round ears, and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adult male lions are larger than females and have a prominent mane. It is a social species, forming groups called prides. A lion's pride consists of a few adult males, related females, and cubs. Groups of female lions usually hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. The lion is an apex and keystone predator; although some lions scavenge when opportunities occur and have been known to hunt humans, the species typically does not actively seek out and prey on humans. The lion inhabits grasslands, savannas and shrublands. It is usually more diurnal than other wild cats, but when persecuted, it adapts to being active at night and at twilight. During the Neolithic period, the lion ranged throughout Africa, Southeast Europe, the Caucasus, Western Asia and northern parts of India, but it has been reduced to fragmented populations in sub-Saharan Africa and one population in western India. It has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1996 because populations in African countries have declined by about 43% since the early 1990s. Lion populations are untenable outside designated protected areas. Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes for concern. One of the most widely recognised animal symbols in human culture, the lion has been extensively depicted in sculptures and paintings, on national flags, and in contemporary films and literature. Lions have been kept in menageries since the time of the Roman Empire and have been a key species sought for exhibition in zoological gardens across the world since the late 18th century. Cultural depictions of lions were prominent in Ancient Egypt, and depictions have occurred in virtually all ancient and medieval cultures in the lion's historic and current range.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology4
Life cycle & reproduction9
Diet & foraging4
Habitat & environment2
Physiology & chemistry4
Other traits5
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Panthera leo has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Panthera leo carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 381×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Panthera leo. Above itBeside it, the bars count how many dated finds fall in each slice of time; the tallest bar is labelled, and heights use a square-root scale so that thin slices stay visible next to rich ones. Read this as how well each stretch of time is preserved and studied — thick bars mean plenty of the right kind of rock and plenty of collectors, which is related to, but not the same as, how common it actually was. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
The two clocks disagree here. The fossil record reaches back to 5.33 Ma, but the molecular clock dates the lineage to only 1.89 Ma — about 3.45 Myr younger. A fossil cannot be older than the lineage it belongs to, so one of the two is off: either the fossil is assigned to the wrong species, or the clock is running fast.
How it livedPBDB
Record type2 278 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions29 of 50 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Stockholm, SE | 30 |
| Chicago, US | 21 |
| CASlocation not on record | 19 |
| Mongolian Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 19 |
| Denver, US | 16 |
| Edmonton, CA | 12 |
| Bonn, DE | 10 |
| Brussels, BE | 10 |
| New Haven, US | 9 |
| Seattle, US | 8 |
| Geneva, CH | 8 |
| East Lansing, US | 7 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 7 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 6 |
| ASNHClocation not on record | 6 |
| München, DE | 6 |
| Washington, US | 6 |
| Provo, US | 5 |
| Buenos Aires, AR | 5 |
| Saint John, CA | 4 |
| MRI-PASlocation not on record | 4 |
| Toronto, CA | 4 |
| Natural History Museum Rotterdamlocation not on record | 3 |
| Science Museum of Minnesotalocation not on record | 3 |
| Porvoo, FI | 3 |
| EL PASO, US | 3 |
| Bourges, FR | 3 |
| Ohio State University - Mammal Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 2 |
| NTNU-VMlocation not on record | 2 |
| Indiana State Universitylocation not on record | 2 |
| National Institutes of Health, Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, United Stateslocation not on record | 2 |
| Washington State University, Charles R. Conner Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| URCEF/LEA/FSA/UAClocation not on record | 2 |
| Berkeley, US | 2 |
| Universidad Católica de Manizaleslocation not on record | 2 |
| Los Angeles, US | 2 |
| Salzburg, AT | 1 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 1 |
| Kuopio, FI | 1 |
| Universidad de Caldas (UCaldas)location not on record | 1 |
| Universidad Icesi (ICESI)location not on record | 1 |
| Fort Hays State University, Sternberg Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 1 |
| Albany, US | 1 |
| Philip L. Wright Zoological Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Iowa City, US | 1 |
| South Kensington, GB | 1 |
| Tilburg, NL | 1 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 1 |
| Muzeum Górnośląskie w Bytomiulocation not on record | 1 |
Where the DNA of Panthera leo was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.