Gazelle : The Palestinian Biological Bulletin (ISSN 0178 – 6288) . Number 58, October 2006, pp. 1-13. | Page 3

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Historical Range:

Past and Present Distribution Map of the Asiatic or Persian Lion (Panthera leo persica).
www.asiatic-lion.org/distrib.html

a. Aristotle and Herodotus wrote that lions were found in the Balkans in the middle of the
first millennium B.C. When Xerxes advanced through Macedonia in 480 B.C., several of
his baggage camels were killed by lions. Lions are believed to have died out within the
borders of present-day Greece in A.D. 80-100 (Guggisberg, 1961).
b. Lions were probably found in the Azerbaijan area up to the 10th century A.D. Their
disappearance from the reed thickets and pistachio and juniper forests is primarily
associated with an increase in human population and a change in environmental
conditions, which in turn led to the decline of ungulates in the region (Heptner and
Sludskii 1972).
c. The thickets of the Jordan River in Palestine were a preferred habitat. Lions could still
be found in the vicinity of Samaria, Lejun (near Megiddo), Ramla, the area of Nahr
(River) Al-Auja and the coastal forests in the early 14th century (Khalaf-von Jaffa, 2001,
2006).
d. Lions disappeared from the Moroccan coast by the mid-1800s. They may have
survived in the High Atlas Mountains up to the 1940s.
e. Last known lion in Algeria killed in 1893 near Batna, 97 km south of Constantine.
f. Last known lion killed in Tunisia in 1891 near Babouch, between Tabarka and AinDraham.
g. Lions were extirpated from Tripolitania, western Libya as early as 1700.
h. Last known lion in Turkey killed in 1870 near Birecik on the Eurphrates (Üstay 1990).
Gazelle – Number 58 – October 2006