Kingdom Animalia Order Carnivora Genus Panthera Higher classification Lion | Phylum Chordata Family Felidae Scientific name Panthera leo sinhaleyus Rank Subspecies | |
Similar Lion, Felidae, Panthera leo fossilis, European lion, Mammal | ||
Sri lanka lions pride
The Sri Lanka lion (Panthera leo sinhaleyus), also known as the Ceylon lion, was a prehistoric subspecies of lion, endemic to Sri Lanka. It appears to have become extinct prior to the arrival of culturally modern humans, c. 37,000 years BC.
This lion is only known from two teeth found in deposits at Kuruwita. Based on these teeth, P. Deraniyagala erected this subspecies in 1939. However, there is insufficient information to determine how it might differ from other subspecies of lion. Deraniyagala did not explain explicitly how he diagnosed the holotype of this subspecies as belonging to a lion, though he justified its allocation to a distinct subspecies of lion by its being "narrower and more elongate" than those of recent lions in the British Natural History Museum collection.