Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 June 2020 | 12(9): 16193–16194

ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print)

doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6248.12.9.16193-16194

#6248 | Received 31 May 2020

Corrigendum: Corrections to A citizens science approach to monitoring of the Lion Panthera leo (Carnivora: Felidae) population in Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal

Dimitri Dagorne ¹, Abdoulaye Kanté ² & John B. Rose ³

¹ 6 rue d’Estienne d’Orves, 92400 Courbevoie, France.

² GIE NIOKOLO, BP 362, Tambacounda, Senegal.

³ Association des Naturalistes des Yvelines, Villa de Chèvreloup, 34, route de Versailles, 78150 Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt, France.

¹ dimitri.dagorne@outlook.com, ² kanteabdoulaye@yahoo.fr, ³ johnrose@alumni.caltech.edu (corresponding author)

Date of publication: 26 June 2020 (online & print)

Citation: Dagorne, D., A. Kante & J.B. Rose (2020). Corrections to A citizens science approach to monitoring of the Lion Panthera leo (Carnivora: Felidae) population in Niokolo-Koba National Park, Senegal. Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(9): 16193–16194. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.6248.12.9.16193-16194

Copyright: © Dagorne et al. 2020. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and distribution of this article in any medium by providing adequate credit to the author(s) and the source of publication.

Following publication of this article on 26 January 2020 (Journal of Threatened Taxa 12(1): 15091–15105) <https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.5549.12.1.15091-15105>, the authors were able to re-examine all of the collected photographs with Sara Blackburn, an expert in lion identification. In addition to the whisker spot patterns employed for identification in our original study, we took account of the following supplementary characteristics: (i) the shape of the whisker spot lines, (ii) the lines of additional whisker spots next to the nose, (iii) the general shape and pattern of the "creases" down and across the nose and of the "eyebrows" and (iv) the pattern of spots on the forehead (especially for photos taken within a period of three months). Only in the case of multiple matches of supplementary characteristics, correspondence of available partial whisker spot patterns, and an absence of contradictory data were two lions considered to be identical.

As a result of this analysis, for which we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Ms. Blackburn, two nearly certain duplicate identifications and one additional potential duplicate identification were detected relative to our original article. A corrected section on Identification of individual lions is reproduced below; no other parts of the article require correction.

Identification of individual lions

Tourist parties submitted photographs and videos of 22 lion observations, using equipment ranging from smartphones to professional level cameras. On the basis of the best of these images, identification sheets for 8 individual lions, described in Table 4, were established and have been made available at http://niokolo-safari.com/lions.htm

It is noteworthy that three of the five identified females were re-sighted during the study (and that two of the identified females may have been a single individual), but that none of the three identified males were definitively re-sighted (although it is possible that two of them were the same individual). This is consistent with the existence during the latter part of the study period, when individual lions could be identified, of a core local population of four or more adult lionesses and a lesser number of males who may have been more mobile, possibly due to their larger home ranges and/or biome preferences as discussed below.

Table 4. Summary of individual lions identified from photographs (* and + = possible shared identity; ? = possible re-sighting)

File number	Name of lion	Sex	Estimated birth year	First observed	Characteristics	Relationships	Re-sightings
1	Alakay*	M	2014–2015	15.i.2017	Whisker spots left side	Possibly same as Kaly, seen with three possible brothers and possible mother
2	Fidji	M	2009–2013	09.ix.2017	Whisker spots left and right, multiple scars	Seen with Gia
3	Gia	F	<2010	09.ix.2017	Whisker spots left and right, multiple scars, vitreous right eye	Seen with Fidji
4	Dinbadjinma	F	2015	15.xi.2017	Whisker spots left and right sides, possible deformed right ear	Seen with Awa (possible sister) and possible mother, then with Banna	24.xii.2017 21.i.2019? 16.ii.2019
5	Awa	F	2015	15.xi.2017	Whisker spots left and right sides	Seen with Dinbadjinma (possible sister) and possible mother, then with Adama	24.xii.2017 08.ii.2018 12.ii.2018? 03.iv.2018?
6	Adama+	F	2010–2013	08.ii.2018	Whisker spots left side, scar on left hind leg	Possibly same as Banna, seen with Awa	03.iv.2018
8	Banna+	F	2013–2015	16.ii.2019	Whisker spots right side, scars on right front leg and at base of tail	Possibly same as Adama, seen with Dinbadjinma
10	Kaly*	M	2012–2015	30.iv.2019	Whisker spots right side and partially on left, badly scarred muzzle, broken upper left canine	Possibly same as Alakay, seen with 2 other lions