Barbary Lion

The Barbary lion was a population of the lion subspecies Panthera leo leo. It was also called North African lion, Atlas lion, and Egyptian lion. It inhabited the mountains and deserts of the Maghreb in North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt. A comprehensive review of hunting and sighting records revealed that small groups of lions may have survived in Algeria until the early 1960s, and in Morocco until the mid-1960s. Today, the wild population is extinct in this region. It was eradicated following the spread of firearms and bounties for shooting lions.