fyanimaldiversity:

Lion (Pantherus leo)

  1. Lions with suspected Barbary lion blood are being bred back in order to try to recreate the subspecies. This male has a thick mane, brown in front and a darker black towards the back. The mane extends all the way down it’s belly, with almost a woolly texture. [x]
  2. Katanga  (Panthera leo bleyenberghi)  males tend to have lighter colored manes, like this male’s thick, sandy blond locks. It’s worth mentioning that judging subspecies by looking at the male’s manes (especially males in captivity) can be a bit difficult, as age and environment can change the size and color. [x]
  3. This stunning male has a reddish tan coat and a cinnamon brown mane with blond “mutton chops”. [x]
  4. An especially dark maned example, his mane is long, but not especially thick. [x]
  5. Asiatic lions (P. l. persica) generally have less luxurious manes, although they can be much thicker and darker than this particular male’s light and sparce hairdo. The distinctive flabby belly is a trait that is mostly associated with this Indian species. [x]
  6. This maned lioness owes her rugged good looks from hormonal imbalances. Her mane is modestly sized, as maned lionesses can have much thicker and darker hairdos. She has a small mohawk, and the majority of her mane is concentrated  under her neck and around her cheeks.[x]
  7. Many (but not all) Tsavo (P. l. nubica) males do not develop full manes, and have smoother, sparser haired coats. He has patches of hair on his shoulders, top of his neck, and around his cheeks. [x]
  8. The only photo of a lion with some form of melanism*, this male probably had some form of mosaicism. He had a black patch on the inside of a front leg, and on his chest. They attempted to breed him, but he was more than likely infertile. Even though he lived in Scotland fairly recently, I could not find images of him fully grown.[x]
  9. Transvaal lions (Panthera leo krugeri) most often carry the genes that make leucistic lions. They can vary in shade, this creamy blond male not quite a white lion. [x]
  10. A group of three lighter and whiter lions, with one creamy female. [x]

*Side note, there are quite a few photoshop’d “black lions” floating around Tumblr.  The amount of people actually believing it is really sad, and melanistic animals are not always solid black, making it double annoying to me. Please, if anyone posts them on your wall, correct them? I’m not really a confrontational person, but there is a reason I don’t go into the melanistic tag often. When the day comes an actual black lion surfaces, I’ll be pleased. These are not real.

They took a perfectly nice leucistic lion picture for this

image

Source:fyanimaldiversity
Title: Hallelujah

Artist: The Beatles

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