BODY SIZE AND MASS OF NGORONGORO CRATER LIONS

[WaveRiders]

Pckts
 
As we know Ngorongoro Crater lions appear to have similar morphological characters of Serengeti lions while it has been suggested they both slightly differ from Manyara lions (proportionally longer facial bones and less developed mane in males in the latter population).
 
What clearly makes the difference is the high prey density all-year around in the Ngorongoro Crater and the high level of kleptoparasitism of lions at the cost of spotted hyenas.
 
At the end I believe Ngorongoro Crater are just very much well fed Serengeti-like lions that are on average significantly bigger and also likely slightly larger then Serengeti lions despite the inbreeding depression. Studies of effects of inbreeding in mammals from humans to carnivores (brown bears and others) mostly suggest a negative impact on body size. Food supply overcome this handicap in Ngorongoro Crater lions.

Therefore in principle any or nearly any or at least most lion populations anywhere with a regular and abundant prey supply like in Ngorongoro Crater can produce lions on average as big, and likely as large, as those from Ngorongoro Crater if not bigger and larger (because of no inbreeding depression).
 
Effects of increasing average body mass is perhaps what is happening in the well protected areas of most Indian/Nepal Parks where tigers might actually be somewhat bigger on average then those of the first half of the XX century because of higher prey density, regular food supply and no hunting pressure (poaching has a different kind of impact). Unfortunately it should be necessary to get samples of large size, homogeneous and randomly taken to have a more definitive answer, something that it is not possible in the very much fragmented current tiger range of the Indian sub-continent. Taking a few tigers here, a few there and so on mostly from the core areas of each NP is not the same thing then taking a similar number of individuals from an hypothetical contiguous very large area of the size at least comparable to the Serengeti Ecosystem or the Selous Game Reserve or the Okavango Delta or the Kalahari or Kruger NP and so on.
 
 
At the end I would say:
 
Give a wild lion cub plenty of food throughout all his life and it will become a very muscular Ngorongoro Crater lion-like wild lion.
 
Give a wild Bengal/Amur tiger cub plenty of food throughout all his life and it will become the typical very stocky and massive wild tiger we are used to regularly see in the core areas of Indian/Nepal Parks.
 
 
                         WaveRiders
 

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