(10-14-2019, 11:41 PM)lionjaguar Wrote: I was referring to lions lived in only in central India. Asiatic lions lived in the central India weighed 177 kg?
Craig Packers and Minnesota University's lion researchers believe lions will most likely dominate in the region since he believes lion is experiencing more fighting experiences. I disagree with them, my opinion is their social lifestyle.

I think there is more than overhunting of the species. It is true that lions were gone in India due to overhunting by British and Indian royals. My statement was lions lived in Middle East, Iran to Turkey or Sinai Peninsula.

(10-15-2019, 12:04 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(10-14-2019, 11:41 PM)lionjaguar Wrote: I was referring to lions lived in only in central India. Asiatic lions lived in the central India weighed 177 kg?
Craig Packers and Minnesota University's lion researchers believe lions will most likely dominate in the region since he believes lion is experiencing more fighting experiences. I disagree with them, my opinion is their social lifestyle.

I think there is more than overhunting of the species. It is true that lions were gone in India due to overhunting by British and Indian royals. My statement was lions lived in Middle East, Iran to Turkey or Sinai Peninsula.

With only two lions recorded in Central India, will be highly unreliable to estimate an average. The figure of 255 kg from 1623 is still in doubt and Jahangir, which killed many lions, clearly said that he noted that "in his entire hunting career he had not come cross such a large, magnificent, or well proportionated animal" (Divyabhanusinh, 2005), which shows that it was an exceptional specimen. The male of 222 kg (estimated at c.240 kg with its entrails) will be big but not exceptional compared with the lions in Africa. So, based in the avialable data, we can't conclude about the same size than some African populations.

I have not saw any statement of Dr Craig Packer saying that the lions will dominate for fighting experiencies in India. 

All the lions in the entire Asian area were overhunted, there is no mystery. Besides, the populations in the desertic areas were probably not as high as we may thinkg. In fact, the reason why the old tales speak of lion attacks may be explained by the fact that lions lived near the human settelments searching for food in arid areas.  So, no big mystery at the end, just human intervention and probably also climate change, we can't exclude it.

(10-15-2019, 01:57 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: The lion killed by Jahangir, wasn't it 647.6 lbs? You only have one available data besides lions of Jahangir? We won't know if the central Indian lions were the same size as today's Asiatic lion or African lion.

I am not bring up that silly topic. I said the dominant and outcome of competition in wild. Dr Craig Packer or his fallow researchers definitely said it if you look up their websites.
Climate change. Yes, that was the answer I was looking for. Problem is there is no written records of how did lions go extinct in the Middle East. Middle East is not always desert areas. My grandma was from swampy areas of the Middle East.

(10-15-2019, 02:26 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 01:57 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: The lion killed by Jahangir, wasn't it 647.6 lbs? You only have one available data besides lions of Jahangir? We won't know if the central Indian lions were the same size as today's Asiatic lion or African lion.

I am not bring up that silly topic. I said the dominant and outcome of competition in wild. Dr Craig Packer or his fallow researchers definitely said it if you look up their websites.
Climate change. Yes, that was the answer I was looking for. Problem is there is no written records of how did lions go extinct in the Middle East. Middle East is not always desert areas. My grandma was from swampy areas of the Middle East.

The lion of Jahangir was of eight and a half Jahangiri maunds or 255 kilograms (1 Jahangir maund = 30.10 kilograms), this is stated by Divyabhanusinh (2005), argubliy the best sources for information on the Asian lion (not only India). 

About weights, we can speculate if you want, but base on the pictures, I will dare to say that the lions from that area were as large as any lion in these days. Please you need to understand that I am not saying that ALL the lions in that area weighed 250 kg, by no means. They were probably like any average lion at about 170-180 kg and similar to the present lions in West Africa and, of course, Gir. But I guess that is a matter of interpretation.


About competition, there are many factors that affect, I already quoted the conclusion of the experts about the relation of these cats in India.

(10-15-2019, 02:33 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: Divyabhanusinh ever written about lions in the central India and how did they go extinct in the Middle East? In the end, your conclusion on lions lived in the central India is just an opinion. No one will ever know. We could guess that they were bigger than Gir's lions since it had larger prey.

(10-15-2019, 02:37 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(10-15-2019, 02:33 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: Divyabhanusinh ever written about lions in the central India and how did they go extinct in the Middle East? In the end, your conclusion on lions lived in the central India is just an opinion. No one will ever know. We could guess that they were bigger than Gir's lions since it had larger prey.

About Divyabhanusinh, he just mention that hunting was the reason, he don't go into details but the information that he used is very especific. Also the book of Valmik Thapar "Exotic Aliens" is a good source, and although his conclution that lions at India came from Mozambique is completelly incorrect, is a good source about all the hunting records and how the lion vanished from many parts of India.

(10-14-2019, 11:41 PM)lionjaguar Wrote: I think there is more than overhunting of the species. It is true that lions were gone in India due to overhunting by British and Indian royals. My statement was lions lived in Middle East, Iran to Turkey or Sinai Peninsula.

(09-03-2019, 11:33 AM)BorneanTiger Wrote:

(09-03-2019, 06:11 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: Body size of Indian lion - modern records:

For many years we tried to get good information about the size of the Indian lion (Panthera leo persica), the last population of the Asiatic/Barbary lions, and that now share the status of subspecies togheter with the West African lions as Panthera leo leo.

For several years we had only the information from Nowell & Jackson (1996) which provided the ranges of the weights of 6 adult lions captured by Dr Ravi Chellam in his studies of 1994, there were 4 males that ranged between 160 to 190 kg and 2 females that weighed 110 and 120 kg respectivelly. They quote that the longest lion measured 292 cm according with Sinha (1987).

After that, I manage to collect all the available sizes of Indian lions from several sources, all of them measured between pegs, and I created this table and these images:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

However, we still lacked the weights of 2 of the four males from Dr Chellam, which by the way, were baited and includes some stomach content. However, the weights matched those of the lions captured in West Africa.

Latter, an email arise in this forum, about weights of Indian lions:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I guessed that those weights were real and I decided to update my table, but for lack of time is still in my list. 

However, surfing the web I found this document thatn changed all: "Asiatic Lion: Ecology, Economics, and Politics of Conservation" - Yadvendradev V. Jhala et al. (2019).
Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00312/full#supplementary-material

This document not only have one of the most compreensive summary of information about the Indian lion in modern and old history, but also is the FIRST document, as far I know, that actually have the body measurements and weights from adult Indian lions!!! So, here is the information:

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

I think that this is more than enough to see that Indian lions are long but not as heavy as some people calculate based in pictures. Measurements were taken "along the curves", but I suspect that they pressed the tape like with the Amur tigers, as a lion with a head-body length of 204 cm (M6) weighs only 160 kg. Compare these measurements with those taken "between pegs" in my table.

Interesting as it is, this documents provides much more information about this animal, and I think that many people here will be happy to discuss it and to learn more about this incredible animal, a relic from a past that no longer exist.


Greetings to all!

One thing that these lions definitely have in common with Northern tigers (Caspian and Siberian tigers put together genetically) is that they suffered a massive reduction in number and habitat (which they partly shared), so just as the Amur tiger is what remains of the Northern race of tigers to have its weight reliably measured, the Gujarati lion is what remains of the Asiatic population of lions to have its weight reliably measured. As for the extinct lions and tigers of Iran and elsewhere, what we have left are photos, pictures, skins or stuffed bodies kept in museums, like that of Shirea, an Iranian lioness brought to Dublin by King Edward VII in 1902, during the reign of Shah Mozaffar Ad-Din of the Qajari dynasty of Persia, and kept in the Natural History Museum of Ireland:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Men with a changed lion in Iran, circa 1880, by Antoin Sevruguin:

*This image is copyright of its original author

2 heads of tigers (I assume Bengal tigers) placed next to a stuffed lion (mistakenly called a 'tiger') in Bahawalpur Zoo in Pakistan, and it appears that the lion and tiger did occur in the area of Bahawalpur in the past, see the works of Kinnear (1920) and Nowell and Jackson (1996, referencing Roberts (1977)): 

Also, @Rishi earlier posted photos of stuffed lions in a museum in Jerusalem, from Dr Norman-Khalaf and Haaretz.

(10-15-2019, 12:04 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: With only two lions recorded in Central India, will be highly unreliable to estimate an average. The figure of 255 kg from 1623 is still in doubt and Jahangir, which killed many lions, clearly said that he noted that "in his entire hunting career he had not come cross such a large, magnificent, or well proportionated animal" (Divyabhanusinh, 2005), which shows that it was an exceptional specimen. The male of 222 kg (estimated at c.240 kg with its entrails) will be big but not exceptional compared with the tigers in the area or the lions in Africa. So, based in the avialable data, we can't conclude that they were larger than the tigers, and in fact about the same size than some African populations.


All the lions in the entire Asian area were overhunted, there is no mystery. Besides, the populations in the desertic areas were probably not as high as we may thinkg. In fact, the reason why the old tales speak of lion attacks may be explained by the fact that lions lived near the human settelments searching for food in arid areas.  So, no big mystery at the end, just human intervention and probably also climate change, we can't exclude it.

*This image is copyright of its original author

(10-18-2019, 11:38 PM)lionjaguar Wrote: You were saying that Asiatic lions were smaller from measuring weight. How about comparing other measurements beisdes weight? Which one is bigger cats? Don't forget African lions, barbary lions and cape lions.
I heard lion is the second largest cats all the time.  I always notice that male lions looks bigger than other cats in sanctuary, circus, and zoo when they are next to other cats. Why lion is considered as the second biggest cat after lion looks bigger than any other cats. They are lighter in weight, and people are making them as the second biggest?