ANPN Science Brief

English Since the return of a single male lion to Gabon’s Plateaux Batéké National Park, this park now harbours four species of wild felids; more than any other park within Central Africa’s Congo Basin. Besides the lion ( Panthera leo ), the park is home to important populations of leopards ( Panthera pardus ), African golden cats ( Caracal aurata ), and Gabon’s only protected population of the serval ( Caracal serval ). Servals are open habitat specialists which mainly feed on small rodents. The species is most easily recognized by its long legs, short tail and large, rounded ears. Commonly, the medium-sized serval is boldly spotted black on a tawny underground. There are also melanistic individuals in certain areas, which appear completely black. Even rarer, is the so-called ‘servaline’ form, which has much smaller, freckled spots, and was once thought to be a separate species. All three forms have been filmed in and around Plateaux Batéké National Park, making this the only ...

Gabon’s lion still on the prowl in the Plateaux Batéké National Park English Almost nine months have passed since the spectacular discovery of a single male lion in Gabon’s Plateaux Batéké National Park (NP) in January this year. The discovery had been made by researcher Ivonne Kienast from the Pan African Programme of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA PanAf), who had set up video camera traps in parts of Plateaux Batéké NP to record chimpanzee behaviour and tool use. The discovery triggered substantial interest, within Gabon and internationally, as the video represented the first confirmed record of a lion in Gabon in almost 20 years; the iconic species has been considered locally extinct in Gabon as several surveys found no more confirmed proof of resident lions since one male was shot in Batéké in 1995. Since the animal’s discovery this January, joint field teams from MPI-EVA, the Gabonese National Park Agency (ANPN), American felid conse...