The Facts about Lion

In historic times the habitat of lions spanned the southern parts of Eurasia, ranging from Portugal to India, and most of Africa except the central rainforest-zone and the Sahara desert. Around the beginning of the current era, they died out from Western Europe, and they had become extinct in Greece by AD 100. In the Caucasus, their last European outpost, lions were found until the 10th century. Between the late 19th and early 20th century they also became extinct from North Africa and the Middle East. Now, most of the population lives in eastern and southern Africa, and their numbers are rapidly decreasing, estimated as between 16,000 and 30,000 living in the wild, down from an estimated 100,000 in the early 1990s. The population is even more in jeopardy because the remaining populations are often geographically isolated from each other, which causes inbreeding.
The Asiatic Lion (Panthera leo persica), which in historical times ranged from Turkey to India through Iran (Persia) and from the Caucasus to Yemen, was eradicated from Palestine by the Middle Ages and from most of the rest of Asia after the arrival of readily available firearms in the 18th century. In Iran the last lion was shot in 1942. The subspecies now survives only in and around the Gir Forest of northwestern India. About 300 lions live in a 1412 km² (558 square miles) sanctuary in the state of Gujarat, which covers most of the forest. Their numbers remain stable.
Until the late Pleistocene, lions were also found in the Americas and in northern Eurasia. The most famous of these prehistoric subspecies were the Cave Lion (Panthera leo spelaea) and the American Lion (Panthera leo atrox) (not to be confused with the Cougar, which is also known as the Mountain Lion). The oldest fossil record of cat, which strongly resembles a lion, is known from Laetoli in Tanzania and is perhaps 3.5 million years old. Some scientists identify the material as Panthera leo. However, these records are not well-substantiated, and all that can be said is that they pertain to a Panthera-like felid. The oldest confirmed records of Panthera leo in Africa are about 2 Ma younger. 700,000 years ago, Panthera leo appeared in Europe for the first time with the subspecies Panthera leo fossilis at Isernia in Italy. From this lion derived the later Cave lion (Panthera leo spelea), which appeared about 300,000 years ago. During the upper Pleistocene the lion spread to North and South America, and developed into Panthera leo atrox, the American lion. Lions were common in northern Eurasia and America during the upper Pleistocene, but died out there at the end of the last glaciation, about 10,000 years ago. Did you ever know those facts actually? Take it easy, I just know it too.