Panthera leo leo is a lion subspecies, which is present in West Africa, northern Central Africa and India. In West and Central Africa it is restricted to fragmented and isolated populations with a declining trajectory. It has been referred to as the Northern lion. Results of a phylogeographic study indicate that lion populations in West and Central African range countries are genetically close to populations in India, forming a major clade distinct from lion populations in Southern and East Africa. In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group subsumed lion populations according to the major clades into two subspecies, namely P. l. leo and P. l. melanochaita. Within P. l. leo three subclades are clearly distinguishable. One from Asia, which includes the extinct Barbary lions of North Africa, another one from West Africa and a third one from Central Africa, north of the rainforest belt. P. l. leo is regionally extinct in North Africa, southern Europe, and West Asia. Asia's sole lion population lives in and around Gir National Park, India. The West African lion population is geographically isolated and numbers fewer than 250 mature individuals. It is listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List. Taxonomy A lion from Constantine, Algeria was the type specimen for the specific name Felis leo used by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. In the 19th and 20th centuries, several lion zoological specimens from Africa and Asia were described and proposed as subspecies: Felis leo persicus described in 1826 by Johann N. Meyer was a lion skin from Persia. Felis leo senegalensis also described by Meyer in 1826, but based on a lion skin from Senegal. Felis leo nubicus described in 1843 by Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville 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. Leo gambianus described in 1843 by John Edward Gray was a specimen from Gambia in the collection of the British Museum of Natural History. Felis leo kamptzi described in 1900 by Paul Matschie was a lion skull from northern Cameroon. Leo leo azandicus described in 1924 by Joel Asaph Allen was a male lion that was killed in 1912 in northeastern Belgian Congo as part of a zoological collection comprising 588 carnivore specimens. Allen admitted a close relationship of this lion specimen to