The little ones of a family

 The enigmatic spotted lion and the pygmy leopard

    The African colonial era left us many unsolved enigmas, related to mysterious creatures that were said to roam the jungles and sheets of the continent, Some were proven, such as the gorilla, the pygmy hippopotamus and the okapi, but others remain a mystery to this day.

Among them are 2 supposed small felines, which are classified as part of the pantherinae family, being possible relatives of the great and famous big cats, join me to read, about the pygmy leopard and the spotted lion, thank you for reading, I hope you support this and without further ado, let's get started.

 The spotted lion

    The marozi or spotted lion, is a supposed feline possibly related to the lion, which is said to live in the mountains of Kenya, especially the Aberdare Mountains region, where it has been reported at an elevation of 10,000 feet (3,000m).

It has been described as smaller than a lion, but a little larger than a leopard and without a distinguishable mane and with a morphology made for the mountains, although the characteristic that has given it its name has been its spots, similar to those of juvenile lions, although everything becomes stranger when the evidence is analyzed.

This evidence comes from zoologist RI Pocock, who examined a skin and skull collected and donated to a museum by a farmer named Michael Trent, who in turn published his notes in a book, but due to little evidence there were no conclusions, Thus, explorer Kenneth Gandar Dower, in his search for this species, discovered three sets of footprints of this species, that were perpendicular to those of buffaloes, this added to a testimony that a female with calves was hunted, It lets us see that these were adult and completely fertile animals.

As a bonus, Kenneth also noticed that the natives emphasized the difference between marozi and lions or leopards.

                 The pygmy leopard

           [Illustrative image]

       This is a possible variety of feline even more mysterious than the marozi, the pygmy leopard, which would be a species described in the book Harmsworth Natural History, published in 1910 by the illustrious naturalist Richard Lydekker, (which is a bit difficult to obtain on the web, but if I can find it it will be in the library)

This animal, according to a native of Somaliland, is described as a very small leopard, being according to the smallest of all the types of leopards known to naturalists, described with spots largely of a small solid type, while the background color of the fur is grayish white, although what is most striking is its small size, atypical of African leopards, because to date the only truly small leopards are on the Asian continent.

Even the naturalist proposed a name for the species: (P. pardus nanopardus), but to date, there is no further evidence of the existence of this animal, except for the report made by Lydekker, so it's all a mystery for now.

Analysis 

Well, if we analyze well both felines are similar, in characteristics and physiognomy, with respect to the marozi it can be theorized which perhaps is a hybrid between leopard and lion, but because the sightings were too scattered As far as temporality is concerned and much worse if the story of the female who was hunted along with her young became true, and as for the pygmy leopard, it was seen only once by the naturalist already mentioned and the complete testimony is in the book that I already mentioned, so a comparison would be very very difficult to achieve.

At the end of the day, perhaps they were a kind of different subspecies or even new species, which became extinct before being classified as such, Let's hope one day the riddles regarding these creatures will be solved, at least the pygmy leopard is difficult to verify due to the situation in Somalia.