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Hello LittleJerry,

I won't dispute that cluttering a featured article with too many pictures is not a good thing (= your revert of my proposal).

However, I can't help regretting that, in a chapter dealing with Hunting and diet, we don't have a series of pictures describing a typical hunting sequence, complete with the initial stalking and the final dragging of the prey to store it away from vultures and hyenas.

Now, we do have such a series of pictures, as shown in the French article. I am aware that it might mean moving away some of the existing photographs; but then, some of them (such as the one showing the lion's teeth) could quite well illustrate a different chapter, as they are not specific to hunting.

Well, I won't fight over that, anyway: it's up to you. Just a regret... Azurfrog (talk) 11:54, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But do you think it adds anything really specific that is not understandable by text? This article has alot of images already. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:11, 8 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I do think the more the pictures exemplify and illustrate the text, the better it is. Which is the case here: first crawling to get "close to their prey before starting the attack" (1st pic), then "They usually pull it down by the rump" (2d pic), and "kill by a strangling bite to the throat" (3d one), and "sometimes drag large prey into cover" (4th one). The idea that pictures should somehow show preferably something that's not in the text is rather new to be: I just thought what it added here was precisely to have a very typical complete hunting sequence.
Of course, this is just my opinion, and I do agree that we already have pictures galore. There again, I certainly won't fight over it, so end of story, as far as I am concerned. Azurfrog (talk) 00:44, 9 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Since the article is over 144,000 bytes, I think new edits should be monitored and any new information added should be discussed here first. LittleJerry (talk) 00:24, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:40, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I do too and think that LittleJerry does a great job to watch over and revise additions. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 09:46, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that new edits need to be monitored, but we can't require that editors discuss changes first. That goes against the ethos of Wikipedia. We can be stricter on sourcing and edit summaries, but it would be hard to justify removal of a new section that was properly sourced and explained just because it wasn't discussed first.   Jts1882 | talk  10:00, 14 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the lead it states that "In the Pleistocene, the lion ranged throughout Eurasia, Africa and North America, but today it has been reduced to fragmented populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and one critically endangered population in western India." This is misleading, while Eurasian cave hyena are deeply nested within living african spotted hyenas, the Eurasian and American lions belong to an entirely separate lineage that split from living lions around 1.9 million years ago (i.e. species level split), and was present in Eurasia by 600,000 years ago [1]. The expansion of living lions out of Africa also happened relatively recently, around 21,000 years ago during the terminal Pleistocene [2] I'm not sure how this could elegantly worked into the lead though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested alt, recognizing that this is the lead and not the article body: "Members of the lion lineage were broadly distributed throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America in the Pleistocene. The range of living lion extended from Africa into India and the Middle East; today, it has been reduced to [...]" Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 07:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Update: New study: "The evolutionary history of extinct and living lions" in PNAS published yesterday, with nuclear genomic data of cave lions, suggests that the divergence took place 500,000 years ago, with no subsequent admixture. The terminology in the paper is confusing though as it inconsistently refers to the cave lion as a subspecies (Panthera leo spelaea) While referring to its Middle Pleistocene ancestor as Panthera fossilis. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:58, 5 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BhagyaMani Can I ask how it is that you have been unable to find "Northern lions" and "Southern lions" in this document by Manuel et al., even with the function of "CTRL F", while double-reverting my edits in this article, in Panthera leo melanochaita ([3]), and in Panthera leo leo ([4]), while under the false impression that the phrases "Northern lion" and "Southern lion" were used "ONLY in combination with the word LINEAGE, or that "They used 'southern / northern LINEAGE' but NOT 'southern / northern lion'"?

• "Northern lion" and "Northern lions" (which is not paired with the word 'lineage') each occur 2 times in the section "Results and Discussion"
• "Northern lion" and "Northern lions" each occur once in the subsection "Population History of Modern Lions" (in which "Northern lion" is paired with "lineages", but only in this case)
• "Northern lions" occurs once in the subsection "Inbreeding in Lions",
• "Northern lion clade" occurs once in the subsection "Implications for Conservation"
• "Southern lions" (which is not paired with the word 'lineage') occurs once in the subsection "Inbreeding in Lions" Leo1pard (talk) 11:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC); edited 11:33, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BhagyaMani I see that you have decided to focus on black-footed cats or cats in ancient Egypt instead. What's interesting about your double-reversions in this article, Panthera leo melanochaita and Panthera leo leo, all of which were done using WP:Twinkle, is that:

• At first, after I told you about using "CTRL F" to search for "northern lion" and "southern lion" in the document by Manuel et al., you said "They used 'southern / northern LINEAGE' but NOT 'southern / northern lion' in the article for P. l. melanochaita, which makes it appear that you put in "northern" or "southern" in the search box, without putting in "lion", and thus you saw "northern lineage" or "southern lineage", but not "northern lion" or "southern lion", but then
• When editing P. l. leo and this article, you said "They did NOT, but ONLY in combination with LINEAGE", which implies that you did not pay attention to the first instance of the phrase "northern lion", because it occurs as "northern lions", not as "northern lion lineage", and likewise, that you didn't pay attention to the instance of "southern lion" appearing as "southern lions", not as "southern lion lineage"!

Why did you make such contradictory statements, or have such a change of attitude about whether or not the phrases "northern lion" and "southern lion" existed in that document, in a matter of less than 6 minutes, as if you were in a haste to revert someone else's edits, like I see you were elsewhere, all using WP:Twinkle, especially after Kmzayeem talked to you about your habit of repeatedly reverting other people's edits? Leo1pard (talk) 05:59, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you telling me that I have been working on black-footed cat? I also know that I did !! And this had priority over answering your questions, as I had nominated this page for GA. It just passed -- , BhagyaMani (talk) 16:55, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re your questions: I did search Manuel et al. (2020) for the keywords 'northern' and 'southern', but found them in combination with 'lineage', 'lion clade', 'group', but NOT implying a subspecific name that YOU read into this. I still don't think that using common names for these 2 subspecies is important. This article provides a host of info that is far more relevant to add to the respective lion pages than (assumed) names. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 16:55, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So you didn't see "northern lions" or "southern lions", just bits "in combination with 'lineage', 'lion clade', 'group', but NOT implying a subspecific name"? Don't be too sure, because just as Ji H. Mazák referred to P. t. tigris and P. t. sondaica respectively as "Mainland Asia tiger" and "Sunda Island tiger" in 2008 (albeit before the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group officially recognised them as subspecies in 2017, barring a subsequent study by CSG members Stephen O’Brien, Shu-Jin Luo and Carlos Driscoll in 2018), Marc de Manuel et al. referred to P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita and "northern" and "southern lions" respectively, and like I told Tijkil, the issue of subspecies of lions is linked with those of tigers, because the main CSG recognised only 2 subspecies of lions in 2017, as with for tigers, but then, just as some CSG members (O’Brien, Luo and Driscoll) rebelled against the classification of 2 subspecies for tigers, by insisting on there being 6 monophyletic clades of tigers, or 6 living subspecies of tigers, in 2018, we now have a study which suggests that the taxonomic position of Central African lions may need to be revised, and this study was done by people, including CSG members O’Brien and Nobuyuki Yamaguchi, so watch out for what's going on within the CSG! Leo1pard (talk) 10:09, 21 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

BhagyaMani, I don't know why you're insisting that the earliest lions did not originate from Africa, even though your source (Werdelin) clearly states that they did. It did not say that the lion fossils found in Tanzania were merely modern lions. You have also cited Tseng (2014) for the claim that lions originated in Asia but what it actually states is "This is then followed by later Miocene dispersal of the lion–leopard–jaguar lineage and then Pliocene dispersal of the fossil ‘lions’. According to the DEC models, the last two dispersals probably occurred from Africa-Palearctic or Holarctic ancestral geographical ranges." Its stating that fossil lions could have originated anywhere in Africa or the Holoarctic. I personally think this information is unhelpful to readers and we should merely state that the earliest known lion fossils are found in Africa. LittleJerry (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are several issues here. Firstly, the earliest fossil lions are 2 million years ago in Africa. This might not be the earliest lion. Secondly, the genetic evidence on lineages (Johnson et al, 2006, Li et al, 2017) suggests a possible earlier Asian origin, but one without fossil evidence. A third issue is that the modern lions can be traced to a more recent African ancestor (~250 kya?). This is just off the top of my head so I'd need to check the details. —  Jts1882 | talk  13:33, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Re 'secondly': this is what I understood too, given that all authors agree about Panthera having radiated from Central Asia, with the leo lineage having migrated south / southwest, and the 2 cave lion lineages towards north, northwest and northeast; and that the Olduvai fossils are attributed to leo. -- BhagyaMani (talk) 14:28, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

LittleJerry On one hand, the main purpose of the mane is considered to be playing a role in sexual attraction towards females. On the other hand, the mane's length is considered to signal fighting success in male–male relationships, with it acting as protection for the neck and throat in territorial fights with rivals, and I've seen it myself, not just in fights between male lions, but also between lions and tigers in captivity. Tigers are supposed to have longer canines and stronger bite-forces than lions, yet I've seen plenty of cases where tigers failed to kill lions with their regular method of killing, that is to bite the throat or neck. If the manes did not offer any protection for the lions' throats or necks, then those lions should have been doomed when the tigers aimed for their throats or necks! Leo1pard (talk) 12:42, 7 August 2020 (UTC); edited 12:43, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]