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The lion is one of the four big cats in the genus Panthera,
and a member of the family Felidae. With some males exceeding
250 kg in weight, it is the second-largest living cat after
the tiger. Wild lions currently exist in Sub-Saharan Africa
and in Asia with a critically endangered remnant population
in Gir Forest National Park in India, having disappeared from
North Africa and Southwest Asia in historic times. Until the
late Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago, the lion was the
most widespread large land mammal after humans. They were
found in most of Africa, much of Eurasia from western Europe
to India, and in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru. Lions
live for ten to fourteen years in the wild, while in captivity
they can live longer than twenty years. In the wild, males
seldom live longer than ten years, as injuries sustained from
continual fighting with rival males greatly reduce their longevity.
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