Short notes and reviews On a mounted skeleton of apparently the extinct Cape Lion, Panthera leo melanochaita (Ch. H. Smith, 1842)

Recently, the skeleton of apparently a Cape Lion was discovered in the Zoological Museum of the University of Amsterdam. The history of the specimen as far as known is summarized and its attribution to Panthera leo melanochaita is elucidated with some measurements taken from the skeleton and the study of fur colours and manes’ development on an oil painting of the same animal in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. Both the animal and the painting once belonged to King Louis Napoleon Bonaparte of Holland.