Talk:Asiatic lion

Population vs. subspecies

Hi, User:‎SilverTiger12: I suggest that we carefully check the sources that you just added whether these authors question the taxonomy by the Cat SG and provide new evidence that the Asiatic lion should be regarded a lion subspecies; or whether they just neglected the taxonomy by Cat SG task force. It seems to me that latter is the case. @Jts1882: your opinion ? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 18:10, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

What edits and sources are in question? My watch list is flooded with stuff at the moment so I may have missed something obvious. —  Jts1882 | talk  20:33, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

See this change of taxonomic status by SilverTiger12 of today. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 21:18, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I read the publications that SilverTiger12 added as references for the argument that Asiatic lion is still considered a subspecies by majority of post-CatSG (2017) sources; .... It is however evident that none of these authors discussed taxonomic status of the lion in India and elsewhere. None of them even referred to the revision of felid taxonomy by Kitchener et al. (2017) ! But they provided info about historical distribution of the Asiatic lion, population status in Gir and behaviour of captive Asiatic lions. Hence, none of these refs contain an argument pro or contra the change of taxonomic status. And since these authors did NOT clearly reject this revision, we should not misinterpret them here by pretending they did. I therefore advocate to revert content to the previous version of this lion being a P. p. leo population. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 05:30, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm sure we've had this (or a similar) discussion before. Many scientists will continue using the old familiar name. It doesn't mean they have rejected the proposal. For most the taxonomy is not relevant to their work, some may not even have seen the proposal. If they don't discuss it, then it certainly can't be taken as a rejection of the proposal.

We should use the IUCN taxonomy for consistency, which has broad consensus for the cat project and increasingly the rest of the mammalian project. The IUCN taxonomy has also been accepted by the ASM. The traditional subspecies designation should certainly be mentioned prominently and a neutral sentence saying some/many scientists continue to use subspecies name is warranted.

With the tiger there is some resistance (including from one of the authors), but this has mainly been as quotes for N&V type commentaries, rather than papers rejecting the taxonomy changes. There's nothing like the dingo where there is considerable discussion in the scientific literature. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:32, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we had similar discussions before. ‎SilverTiger12: please note that very many authors who write about cats, peer-reviewers and journal editors are NOT members of the Cat SG and are simply not aware of the revised taxonomy or do not care for taxonomic issues. So if this folk continues to use deprecated scientific names, it does NOT mean that they reject the revision by Cat SG members. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 10:49, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

No lion in Afghanistan

Since the late 19th century, several authors wrote about wildlife in Afghanistan:

• Scully (1887) described skins of several species collected in the country, but NOT a single one of a lion.
• Kinnear (1920) wrote: There is no evidence to show that the lion inhabited Afghanistan or Baluchistan within historic times.
• Pocock (1939) wrote: I’m not aware of the evidence of its former existence in Afghanistan, see page 213.
• Members of the 1965 Street Expedition to Afghanistan did NOT come across a single lion in the country, but collected skins of mammals in several bazaars and also shot wildlife during their journey Hassinger (1973).
• The Afghani wildlife biologist Habibi (1977 & 2004 (revised edition)) wrote the 1st book about mammals of Afghanistan, but did NOT account of lion in the country.

I have a few more refs re no lion in Afghanistan. Therefore : referring to the country in the lead is erroneous. Should I add all these refs to main page, e.g. in a separate section? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 19:21, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I am also not seeing any mention of Afghanistan on the IUCN page, so not sure what Ddum5347 is on about here. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:37, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

On the IUCN's page for the lion, on the "Geogrpahic Range" portion, it clearly states Afghanistan as a country the lion is extirpated from. Link:https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/15951/115130419 Ddum5347 (talk) 19:55, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Apart from the doubtfulness of that statement (which runs contra just about every other literature source), there is no indication that this would have been the Asiatic lion (ssp. persica), so this is misleading in this article. Please stop the edit-warring now until this is figured out. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:46, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

The IUCN page on the Asiatic lion doesn't mention Afghanistan, while the page for the lion does (without a timeframe). We can debate which is more relevant. But I note that Afghanistan was added to the range in the article while keeping the existing source. It would help if additions were sourced (with a proper citation that can be followed rather than a rude edit summary). —  Jts1882 | talk  20:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

—  Jts1882 | talk  20:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

• Looking at the sources given on the Panthera leo IUCN page for range outside of Africa: these are stated as Nowell and Jackson 1996, and Sunquist and Sunquist 2002. Here is a link to the former; the relevant pages are 37-38. Here is a link to a (sufficient) Amazon preview for the latter; relevant pages are 286-288. Neither source mentions Afghanistan. So I have no idea where the IUCN even got that idea, seeing as their own source material does not bear it out. IUCN is not infallible, and in this case seems to not have the facts on their side. I suggest we would need a preponderance of positive evidence for inclusion of that claim, which currently seems absent. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 21:04, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree that we need positive evidence !! Before you go on wondering, here is a hunter lore:

• In the early 1920s, big game hunter Arthur Stannard Vernay participated in an expedition to India to collect wildlife; at the Baluchistan-Persian border he was told … that the lion existed in Afghanistan 75 years ago. This is mere heresay, but it sounds reasonable, cited by Harper 1945. The only authors who considered it plausible that lion might have occurred in the country were Heptner & Sludskii (1992), who referred to Harper (1945), see footnote there. Whereas others like Ellerman & Morrison-Scott (1951) and Nowell & Jackson (1996) decided to not fall for the hunter lore. Therefore I think, the lion iucn assessors' logic is : if it had occurred, it was extirpated before anyone wrote about it. But authenticated evidence does not exist that lion ever entered the country, i.e. no skin found in a bazaar, no lion sighted nor shot at any particular place in the country. The 19th century natural historians -- Blyth, Sterndale, Jerdon -- would have known about it. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 21:56, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Recent edits

Mohanasses, would you please stop adding badly sourced, badly written, and bady positioned material into Asiatic lion and Mugger crocodile? Youtube videos are rarely if ever reliable sources; there is no excuse for making sweeping generalizations about predation based on single incidents; and in no case is it acceptable to embellish a statement with editorial comments and purple prose. You have been multiply reverted by different people, please take the hint and discuss the matter here instead of edit-warring. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:01, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

dear user Elmidae, I'm sharing more than 6 or 7 reliable resources accompanied with 2 youtube clear videos as a reference to my edit & illustrate the bias & inaccuracy of the 2 articles, so I'm not responsible for your stubborness or low IQ or stupidity to keep deleting my edits so I'll continue editing these stuff & I'm not concerned about the act of ignorance & bulleying others to force them to accept what you consider as a fact wherever it's furtherness from the truth

@Mohanasses: that's not how it works. Read WP:BRD. You are now edit-warring and WILL be blocked for it if you continue in the face of discussion. The personal insults are also a good way to get booted. Your YouTube link is not a reliable source - you will have to come up with something a lot better to support this statement, espeically a sweeping statement such as you are trying to make.

Please do NOT reinsert the contested material until some sort of consensus has been established here. The next revert will get you reported. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 17:46, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

• On topic: if you can find better references that these ones, I think there would be scope for an additional (half-)sentence at the end of the first paragraph of the "feeding ecology" section, where it is mentioned that lions sometimes take muggers as prey - might mention there that sometimes it goes the other way instead. But that's sourcing-depedant, and certainly should be much shorter and more neutrally phrased. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 18:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort, Elmidae !!!! How should we deal with their repeated reverts on mugger page? -- BhagyaMani (talk) 18:24, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Looks like the only halfway usable source in this pile is the Times of India piece, which makes no bones about the fact that this is an extremely unusual incident. (I don't even know what the other two are... raw dumps of mixed-up private mirrors of WP? Weird...) So dependent on how reliable that appears, might also be worth one or half a sentence somewhere in the article? Definitely not the fulgent eloquence currently suggested. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:42, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Hmm, I think this incident is not really worthwhile adding because WP:NOTNEWS. That page is so well sourced, it doesn't need such gossip. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 20:28, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

dear Elmidae I took a screenshot & link of our struggle while you bulleying another user to block him unrightfully & unlawfully using unsuitable use of your so-called power ... you're defending a biased section & banning any effort to edit it with even if the editor publicise more than 8 different kind of sources including 2 youtube videos representing live events refuting all your claims, & I'll keep editin those biased sections without being afraid of blocking, Thanks

Out of curiosity, have you ever heard of WP:AGF? No? I didn't think so.

I don't see what bias you seem so certain exists, and I don't know what 8 sources you are talking about, only the three you keep adding to the article: 1 is the website of some advocacy organization which, while they may do worthy work, is not considered a reliable (see: neutral and scientific) source, while the other two are YouTube videos, which are mostly certainly not reliable sources.

And as it happens, neither I nor at least one other editor besides Elmidae think that your sources are reliable. I would also like to to state that your grammar is atrocious, and your commentary here is more than a little arrogant and rude.

Elmidae is not in the wrong here, you are. You have transgressed against the policies and guidelines that govern Wikipedia: the ones that require reliable sources and gaining consensus. And you dare to accuse Elmidae of acting unlawfully? You are the one that will be blocked if you continue edit-warring. --SilverTiger12 (talk) 19:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Origin of Fo-lions

"Buddhist monks, or possibly traders, possibly brought descriptions of sculpted lions guarding the entry to temples in China."

This doesn't make sense. "Buddhist monks, or possibly traders, possibly brought descriptions of sculpted lions guarding the entry to temples in India" would make more sense because the "sculpted lions" must be gate guardians for Indian temples in order for descriptions to be brought to China. Better still, "Buddhist monks, or possibly traders, possibly brought to China descriptions of sculpted lions guarding the entry to Indian temples", however I'm disinclined to make a second edit after my first was reverted, lest the wiki overlords accuse me of edit-warring. 148.252.132.73 (talk) 02:50, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Population or subclade

Genetic research clearly indicates, that the Asiatic lion (together with the extinct North African lions) forms not just a "population" (whatever that is in taxonomy) but a distinctive subclade of the Northern lion. I would add this to the topic. In every case, we should delete the "population". That is in my opinion not a scientific term.--Altaileopard (talk) 13:02, 30 June 2022 (UTC)