Well, most people think that lions only come from Africa.

大部分人认为狮子都是来自于非洲的。

And you would be forgiven for thinking this, because in fact most lions do come from Africa.

持有这种观点是情有可原的，因为事实上大部分狮子确实是从非洲过来的。

But this hasn't always been the case.

不过也不完全如此。

If we go back ten thousand years we would find that there were lions roaming vast sections of the globe.

如果我们回到一万年前我们会发现狮子是游走在广阔的全球区域的。

But now, unfortunately, only very small sections of the lions' former habitat remain.

但是目前很不幸的是之前那些狮子的栖息地只有很少的一部分被保留下来。

My particular interest is Asiatic lions, which are a sub-species of African lions.

我特别感兴趣的是亚洲狮，它们是非洲狮子品种的一个分支。

It's almost a hundred thousand years since the Asiatic lions split off and developed as a sub-species.

它们用了大概几十万年时间从非洲狮演变成其分支种类。

At one time the Asiatic lion was living as far west as Greece and they were found from there, in a band that spread east through various countries of the Middle East, all the way to India.

曾经有一段时间亚洲狮在遥远的西方生活过，比如希腊，并且从那里开始往东，中间横跨由多种国家组成的中东一带，一直到印度都发现过亚洲狮。

In museums, you can now see Greek coins that have clear imagines of the Asiatic lion on them.

在很多博物馆里都能看见上面印有清晰的亚洲狮图像的希腊硬币。

Most of them are dated at around 500 B.C.

这些硬币的大部分都能追溯到公元前500年。

However, Europe saw its last Asiatic lion roaming free two thousand years ago.

然而亚洲狮最后一次在被发现游走在欧洲大概是在2000年以前。

Over the next nineteen hundred years the numbers of Asiatic lions in the other areas declined steadily, but it was only in the nineteenth century that they disappeared from everywhere but India.

在之后的1900年里其他地方亚洲狮的数量也在逐渐减少，但是在19世纪里，除印度以外，它们在其他地方都销声匿迹了。

So, how can you tell an Asiatic lion from an African lion, with which you're probably more familiar?

那么，非洲狮你可能更加熟悉的情况下，你怎么区分亚洲狮和非洲狮呢？

Well, in general, Asiatic lions are not as big as African lions.

事实上通常情况下，亚洲狮没有非洲狮个头大。

The color is more or less the same, but the appearance of the mane is different - that's the hair around the lion's face and neck.

虽然它们的肤色差不多，但是它们鬃毛的样式是不一样的，鬃毛就是狮子的脸和脖子周围那些毛。

The Asiatic lion's mane is noticeably shorter than the African lion's.

亚洲狮的鬃毛明显比非洲狮的短一些。

Asiatic lions also have a long fold of skin on their undersides whereas not many African lions have this.

亚洲狮的腹部皮肤还会有明显的折痕，但是非洲狮腹部就没有这么多了。