Asiatic Lions in Europe and Southwest Asia (Historical Range)
Lions were once found in Europe. The Nemean lion of pre-literate Greek myth is associated with the Labours of Herakles.When King Xerxes of Persia advanced through Macedon in 480 BC, several of his baggage camels were killed by lions, but the fourth-century compiler of the Historia Animalium attributed to Aristotle had apparently never seen a lion: "The lion has its neck composed of one single bone instead of vertebrae". Herodotus wrote that lions were found in the Balkans. Lions are believed to have died out within the borders of present-day Greece around AD 80-100.
The European population is sometimes considered part of the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica) group, but others consider it a separate subspecies, the European Lion (Panthera leo europaea) or a last remnant of the cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea).
Scythian art from Ukraine, dated to the fourth century BC, depicts Scythians hunting very realistically portrayed lions. Lions survived in the Caucasus region until the 10th century. This was the northernmost population of lions and the only place in the former Soviet Union's territory that lions lived in historic times. These lions became extinct in Armenia around the year 100 and in Azerbaijan and southwest Russia during the 10th century. The principal reasons for the disappearance of these cats was their extermination as predators. The prey for large cats in the region included the wisent, elk, aurochs, tarpan, deer and other ungulates.
Lions remained widespread elsewhere until the mid-19th century, when the advent of firearms led to their extinction over large areas. One of the last sighting of a live Persia lion in Iran was in 1941 (between Shiraz and Jahrom, Fars Province). In 1944, the corpse of a lioness was found on the banks of Karun river, Khuzestan Province, Iran. By the late 19th century the lion had disappeared from Turkey. However, the last Persian lions (a pride of five) was hunted only in 1963 in the Dasht-i Arzhan (the Arzhan parklands) of Fars province in Iran, when the national newspapers and media "celebrated" with pictures and fanfare the killing of the last of these species that formed the national emblem of the country and appeared on its flag at the time. The diminished pride that was inhabiting a cave consisted of a female with four cubs. The male had been already shot. The female was shot on spot and the cubs were taken as trophies. No subsequent sightings have been reported from Iran.
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