Nubian lion

The Nubian lion (Panthera leo leo) was described in 1843 by the French zoologist Henri Marie Ducrotay de Blainville under the trinomen Felis leo nubicus. In 1939, it was considered synonymous with Felis leo leo.

Some authors considered it synonyomous with P. l. massaica. In 2005, it was subordinated to P. l. leo.

In 2017, the Cat Classification Task Force of the Cat Specialist Group assigned the lion populations in Asia and Western, Central and Northern Africa to P. l. leo.

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 , it grouped with skulls of Central African lions in the Central African Republic and the northern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and that of an Ethiopian lion. The Sudanese lion was less closely related to Northern, Western, Eastern and Southern African lions, and lions in other parts of Central Africa.