about the evolution of lions in 2008, 357 samples of wild and captive lions from Africa and India were examined. Results showed that four captive lions from Morocco did not exhibit any unique genetic characteristic, but shared mitochondrial haplotypes with lion samples from West and Central Africa. They were all part of a major mtDNA grouping that also included Asiatic lion samples. Results provided evidence for the hypothesis that this group developed in East Africa, and about 118,000 years ago traveled north and west in the first wave of lion expansion. It broke up within Africa, and later in West Asia. Lions in Africa probably constitute a single population that interbred during several waves of migration since the Late Pleistocene. Genome-wide data of a wild-born historical lion specimen from Sudan clustered with P. l. leo in mtDNA-based phylogenies, but with a high affinity to P. l. melanochaita. A comprehensive genetic study published in 2016 confirmed the close relationship between the extinct Barbary lions from Northern Africa and lions from Central and West Africa and in addition showed that the former fall into the same subclade as the Asiatic lion. Former distribution and habitat Historical sighting and hunting records from the 19th and 20th centuries show that the Barbary lion inhabited Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub. The westernmost sighting of a Barbary lion reportedly occurred in the Anti-Atlas in western Morocco. It ranged from the Atlas Mountains and the Rif in Morocco, the Ksour and Amour Ranges in Algeria to the Aurès Mountains in Tunisia. In Algeria, the Barbary lion was sighted in the forested hills and mountains between Ouarsenis in the west to the Chelif River plains in the north and the Pic de Taza in the east. It inhabited the forests and wooded hills of the Constantine Province southward into the Aurès Mountains. In the 1830s, lions may have already been eliminated along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and near human settlements. In Libya, the Barbary lion persisted along the coast until the beginning of the 18th century, and was extirpated in Tunisia by 1890. By the mid-19th century, the Barbary lion population had massively declined, since bounties were paid for shooting lions. The cedar forests of Chelia and neighbouring mountains in Algeria harboured lions until about 1884. The Barbary lion disappeared in the Bône region by 1890, in the Khroumire and Souk Ahras regions by 1891, and