Lions in Europe

From Wikipedia:

In relatively recent times the habitat of lions spanned the southern parts of Eurasia, ranging from Greece to India, and most of Africa except the central rainforest-zone and the Sahara desert. Herodotus reported that lions had been common in Greece around 480 BC; they attacked the baggage camels of the Persian king Xerxes on his march through the country. Aristotle considered them rare by 300 BC and by 100 AD extirpated. A population of the Asiatic Lion survived until the tenth century in the Caucasus, their last European outpost.

Via Gene Expression.