The marozi (“spotted lion”), which has been given the scientific name Panthera leo maculatus, has been reported from the montane forests of East Africa.

The animals, heretofore unknown by Western observers, came to the fore beginning in 1903, with sightings of darker and beautifully spotted lions in the Kenyan mountains. The natives called them the marozi. Then farmer Michael Trent killed two three-year-old individuals in 1931. The published photograph of the skin is a well-known cryptozoological archival illustration. As Bernard Heuvelmans has noted, a lion of that age should have lost its spots. Suspecting that a subspecies is in the making, he has given these cats the formal subspecies name maculatus.

No live specimens have been captured to date, and thus the marozi remains an active candidate for cryptozoological pursuits.

SOURCE:

The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters,Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
Written by Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark – Copyright 1999 Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark