may have developed long-haired manes, because of lower temperatures in the Atlas Mountains than in other African regions, particularly in winter. Results of a long-term study on lions in Serengeti National Park indicate that ambient temperature, nutrition and the level of testosterone influence the colour and size of lion manes. Taxonomy Felis leo was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for a type specimen from Constantine, Algeria. Following Linnaeus's description, several lion zoological specimens from North Africa were described and proposed as subspecies in the 19th century: Felis leo barbaricus, described by the Austrian zoologist Johann Nepomuk Meyer in 1826, was a lion skin from the Barbary Coast. Felis leo nubicus, described by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville in 1843, was a male lion from Nubia that had been sent by Antoine Clot from Cairo to Paris, and died in the Ménagerie du Jardin des Plantes in 1841. In 1930, Reginald Innes Pocock subordinated the lion to the genus Panthera, when he wrote about the Asiatic lion. In the 20th and early 21st centuries, there has been much debate and controversy among zoologists on lion classification and validity of proposed subspecies: In 1939, Glover Morrill Allen considered F. l. barbaricus and nubicus synonymous with F. l. leo. In 1951, John Ellerman and Terence Morrison-Scott recognized only two lion subspecies in the Palearctic realm, namely the African lion Panthera leo leo and the Asiatic lion P. l. persica. Some authors considered P. l. nubicus a valid subspecies and synonymous with P. l. massaica. In 2005, P. l. barbarica, nubica and somaliensis were subsumed under P. l. leo. In 2016, IUCN Red List assessors used P. l. leo for all lion populations in Africa. In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group subsumed the lion populations in North, West and Central Africa and Asia to P. l. leo. Genetic research Results of a phylogeographic analysis using samples from African and Asiatic lions was published in 2006. One of the African samples was a vertebra from the National Museum of Natural History (France) that originated in the Nubian part of Sudan. In terms of mitochondrial DNA, it grouped with lion skull samples from the Central African Republic, Ethiopia and the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the historical Barbary lion was morphologically distinct, its genetic uniqueness remained questionable. In a comprehensive study