Did lions ever exist in Europe?

Question

What I know of is that lions exist in only two places (naturally). The most common place is parts of Africa. The other place is Gir forest India. I think that lions never ever existed in Europe. I think that European Kings used lions as a symbol of hierarchy when they first saw lions when invading Africa.

Answer 1

Not naturally in Europe

Answer 2

yup

they used to exist in america too thousands of years ago but were wiped out.

Answer 3

Yes, but not since the stone age, there were mountain lions in Europe like there are in America. They all got wiped out a really long time ago.

A kind of small elephant was native to Cyprus too, they got wiped out by the first settlers.

Answer 4

Unless I'm gravely misinformed, Greece used to have lions that lived in the countryside without any import; a native species that had migrated up from Africa at some point in the distant past.

The Romans did import them as well, but that was well after the Greeks had written about them in their own mythos.

Answer 5

They certainly did.

Answer 6

Europeans have kown of lions for thousands of years. The Greeks had them in several parts of thier mythology. But they were not natuaral to Europe as you say. And as another guy said, the Romans brought back several types of etxotic animals for kings and emperors. But do you blame the Europeans for useing the lion in thier hierarchy? They look so cool and king like, it would be wrong not to.

Answer 7

yep. they still do!

Answer 8

i think that the romans brought lions and other exotic animals to europe for entertainment of the people.