The Last Photo Of The ‘Barbary Lion’
Photographer: Marcelin Flandrin
Date: 1925
Location: Morocco (Atlas Mountains region)
Marcelin Flandrin photographed what is believed to be among the last known images of a wild Barbary lion (Panthera leo leo, also known as the Atlas lion) in Morocco in 1925. The Barbary lion was historically the largest of the lion subspecies, native to North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, and was the lion used in ancient Rome's gladiatorial arena games. Intense hunting and habitat destruction drove the subspecies to extinction in the wild; the last confirmed wild Barbary lion was shot in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco in 1942. A small number of descendants of Barbary lions — historically kept in the Moroccan Royal Menagerie — are maintained in captivity in zoos, including Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in England, though their genetic purity is debated. Flandrin's photograph stands as a haunting record of a vanished subspecies.
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