The Last Lions
The Atlas lion. From Roman arena to royal zoo. 100,000 years in North Africa, then gone.
The Barbary lion — also called the Atlas lion — ruled North Africa for over 100,000 years. It hunted in the cedar forests of the Atlas Mountains, stalked Barbary sheep across Mediterranean scrubland, and survived winters that would kill an African savannah lion.
Romans captured thousands for the Colosseum. Moroccan sultans kept them as symbols of divine power. European naturalists measured their skulls and named them. Hunters with rifles erased them from the wild in less than a century.
By 1942, the last confirmed wild Barbary lion — a lioness — was shot at the Tizi n'Tichka pass in Morocco's High Atlas. The road from Marrakech to Ouarzazate runs through the spot where a subspecies ended.
But the story didn't stop. Berber tribes had been presenting captured lions to Moroccan kings for centuries. That royal collection — genetic material from the Atlas Mountains itself — survived. Today, approximately 90 descendants live in zoos across Morocco and Europe. They are the last thread.
Where the lions were. Where they are.
The Barbary lion's historic range: Morocco to Egypt, along the Atlas Mountains and the Mediterranean coast. They lived in forests, mountains, and scrubland north of the Sahara — a cold-adapted population unlike any lion alive today. Fossils near Essaouira date to 100,000 years ago.
Barbary vs. Asiatic vs. African
All three belong to the same species — Panthera leo. But the Barbary and Asiatic are both classified under Panthera leo leo (the northern subspecies), while the East and Southern African lions are Panthera leo melanochaita. The Barbary lion is genetically closer to the Asiatic lion in India than to the African lion in the Serengeti.
200,000 to 20,000 in one century
From Bizmoune to Pilsen
Morocco's lion
Morocco's national football team is called Les Lions de l'Atlas. The lion appears on the national coat of arms. The Barbary lion is the country's most famous extinct animal — and possibly its most powerful living symbol.
The descendants in Rabat Zoo are not museum specimens. They are a breeding population with an active studbook, managed transfers between European zoos, and a Moroccan government that has discussed reintroduction feasibility. A conference was planned for late 2025 or early 2026 to evaluate returning the Atlas lion to its mountains.
Dancing with Lions is named for this animal. Not the African lion of the Serengeti documentary, but the Atlas lion of the Moroccan mountains — the one that was lost, preserved by kings, and might one day return.
Black, S.A., Fellous, A., Yamaguchi, N., Roberts, D.L. (2013). Examining the extinction of the Barbary lion and its implications for felid conservation. PLOS ONE 8(4): e60174.
Yamaguchi, N., Haddane, B. (2002). The North African Barbary lion and the Atlas lion project. International Zoo News 49: 465–481.
Black, S., Yamaguchi, N., Harland, A., Groombridge, J. (2010). Maintaining the genetic health of putative Barbary lions in captivity. European Journal of Wildlife Research 56: 21–31.
Lehocká, K. et al. (2021). Genetic diversity of the captive Moroccan Royal Lion population. PLOS ONE.
Bauer, H. et al. (2015). Lion populations are declining rapidly across Africa, except in intensively managed areas. PNAS 112(48): 14894–14899.
Lee, T. et al. (2015). Assessing uncertainty in sighting records: an example of the Barbary lion. PeerJ 3: e1224.
Burger, J., Hemmer, H. (2005). Urgent call for further breeding of the critically endangered Barbary lion. European Journal of Wildlife Research 52(1): 54–58.
IUCN SSC Cat Specialist Group. Panthera leo. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
Linnaeus, C. (1758). Systema Naturae. Type specimen from Constantine, Algeria.
Sources: IUCN Red List, University of Kent Barbary Lion Project, PNAS, Britannica, Rabat National Zoo
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