ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)

[GuateGojira]

(02-18-2020, 12:37 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: Do we know how often he had killed cattle? Still the lion as far as I know was healthy and territorial and also some males rarely participate in hunting(only eats) yet never seems to be abnormally bulky. Almost every gir lion is a cattle killer, yet most males never seems abnormally bulky. I think maybe male lions are different to tigers as male tigers finding plenty of easy prey changes his lifestyle more drastically than a male lion, as he usually needs to be super fit to chase down fast prey like deer, whereas some male lions can probably go a year without hunting especially males with injuried hind legs. Some Lions just has to be fit enough to patrol and protect his territory. 

Lion huting was banned in Kenya 1977 and I think it has taken a couple of decades before big lions became a regular sight again, as large individuals must have been targeted in the past and the few good genes that survived has now gotten time to spread out again. Largest lioness as far as I know is also from East Africa, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest males where from that region as well.

The lion ate only cattle, that is why the lion was killed. It was not "hunted" for sport, it was killed by the park ranges as it was a "problematic" animal. The lion was healty but it had no pride and was not territorial, at least this is the few information that we have from the animal. The Asian lions are not cattle killers per se but they main prey is wild animals, not just cattle. 

The largest lionesess that I know came from Southern Africa, based on averages, and although the heaviest female came from Kenya with 186 kg, this record came from hunting sources so is unclear if the animal had stomach content or it she was pregnant, like some cases reported by Stevenson-Hamilton.

At the end, to avoid hurting sensitivities from some "hard-core" lion fans, I change the word "abnormal" to just "very", but this not change the fact that this lion was not the prime-healty-pride boss lion that some people may think. Like I explined before, this was not a "normal" lion at al. For details check the link, post number 185: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-on-the-...eo?page=13

Also, if someone ask why I did not include the huge lion skull of 432 mm in the table, please check this link, post number 159: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-on-the-...eo?page=11

Hope this helps. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(02-11-2020, 11:03 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: The body size of the lion (Panthera leo) - Final work:

I finally manage to compile all the information about the body size and weight for all the lion populations from which we have actual data. I manage to put it in one big image so here is the compilation of data about the body size and weight from Panthera leo:

*This image is copyright of its original author

This time I manage to put important remarks between the notes and the size of the Barbary lion reflects an "average" specimen, which now shows that it will be about the same size than the other populations of its subspecies. By the way, I know that a Barbary lion in the wild will probably not look like this, but as all the data available came from captive animals, I deciced to use a captive specimen. Other remark on the body measurements, especifically the total length/head-body/shoulder height from Indian lions reported by Jhala et al., (2019) were not included as were taken "along the curves" and I allready had measurements "between pegs" which are more reliable, but chest girths and weights did were included.

Also, for space issues, I just used the most extreme populations from the Southern lions and I did not included the populations of Zimbabwe and Botswana, so here you have the original table again, and can be used like a completement/Appendix to the previous image presented here:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Finally, we must not forget the particular population of lions in Ethiopia, which we only know captive specimens in the Addis Ababa Zoo, and we can't discard its measurements as we can use them like surrogates from the wild population if necesary, like we do with the Malayan and South China tigers, so I add this image too:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Finally about skulls, I have more information about many populations, which include that from J. H. Mazák (2010), Roosevelt & Heller (1914), Hartstone-Rose et al. (2014) and Stevenson Hamilton (1947), however with the last one I was searching in the book (yes, now I have the book! ) and he did not describe the method of measurements and I affraid that probably he measured his lion skulls "between perpendiculars" which was the method used by most hunters in his days and which, compared with measurements with callipers, may slightly increase the length, specially if the mandible is still attached to the skull. That is why I used only skulls measures by Zoologists using callipers.  

I think that, for the moment, these three tables/images summarize my data about the body size of the lion at this moment (January 2020), if someone have a doubt or request specific data from a population, feel free to ask.

Greetings and cheers to all.

Ok, I made some corrections and I added the missing three populations of lions from which we still have body measurements. So here is the NEW AND FINAL image (I hope so) about the body size of the lion (Panthera leo) that that summarize all the body measurements and weights that I have about wild lions. The inclution of the Addis Ababa lions were just to fill the gap, just like I made with the Malayan and South China tigers in captivity.

*This image is copyright of its original author

This have all the body measurements that I gathered and the only other extra information will be that of skulls. So if someone want body measurements this image have all I have. By the way, again , if someone have questions fell free to ask.

Sadly, many other populations are absent as there are no records reported, for example the famous Crater lions, so all out of this data is just speculation.

Save it and keep it, the next one will be about tigers.

Greetings to all. Reply

[Pantherinae]

(02-18-2020, 02:03 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(02-18-2020, 12:37 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: Do we know how often he had killed cattle? Still the lion as far as I know was healthy and territorial and also some males rarely participate in hunting(only eats) yet never seems to be abnormally bulky. Almost every gir lion is a cattle killer, yet most males never seems abnormally bulky. I think maybe male lions are different to tigers as male tigers finding plenty of easy prey changes his lifestyle more drastically than a male lion, as he usually needs to be super fit to chase down fast prey like deer, whereas some male lions can probably go a year without hunting especially males with injuried hind legs. Some Lions just has to be fit enough to patrol and protect his territory. 

Lion huting was banned in Kenya 1977 and I think it has taken a couple of decades before big lions became a regular sight again, as large individuals must have been targeted in the past and the few good genes that survived has now gotten time to spread out again. Largest lioness as far as I know is also from East Africa, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest males where from that region as well.

The lion ate only cattle, that is why the lion was killed. It was not "hunted" for sport, it was killed by the park ranges as it was a "problematic" animal. The lion was healty but it had no pride and was not territorial, at least this is the few information that we have from the animal. The Asian lions are not cattle killers per se but they main prey is wild animals, not just cattle. 

The largest lionesess that I know came from Southern Africa, based on averages, and although the heaviest female came from Kenya with 186 kg, this record came from hunting sources so is unclear if the animal had stomach content or it she was pregnant, like some cases reported by Stevenson-Hamilton.

At the end, to avoid hurting sensitivities from some "hard-core" lion fans, I change the word "abnormal" to just "very", but this not change the fact that this lion was not the prime-healty-pride boss lion that some people may think. Like I explined before, this was not a "normal" lion at al. For details check the link, post number 185: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-on-the-...eo?page=13

Also, if someone ask why I did not include the huge lion skull of 432 mm in the table, please check this link, post number 159: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-on-the-...eo?page=11

Hope this helps.

It just says it was a stock rider we don’t know if that’s all he ate and it sounded like he said in one of the emails the lion was killed after it had attacked a human. neither could I see anyone say he was nomadic and not territorial. 
Asiatic males kills a lot of cattle I was told a while back I will try to track that down when I get the chance. :) I personally don’t think cattle eating it would affect the lions size the same way it would affect the other Panthera cats.

Oh I didn’t know that I just knew about a 186 kg female from East Africa. 

But one question what is different between a cattle killer and a animal that has been baited over a longer period of time? That must also affect the size of an animal. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(02-18-2020, 02:45 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: It just says it was a stock rider we don’t know if that’s all he ate and it sounded like he said in one of the emails the lion was killed after it had attacked a human. neither could I see anyone say he was nomadic and not territorial. 
Asiatic males kills a lot of cattle I was told a while back I will try to track that down when I get the chance. :) I personally don’t think cattle eating it would affect the lions size the same way it would affect the other Panthera cats.

Oh I didn’t know that I just knew about a 186 kg female from East Africa. 

But one question what is different between a cattle killer and a animal that has been baited over a longer period of time? That must also affect the size of an animal.

Like I say, the few evidence suggest an animal that was not quite normal and that ate cattle. As far I know, based in cases of people from Kenya at least, a lion is labeled as cattle killer when they just focus on cattle and the wild life service will not kill the animal just because it hunted a few cows, in those cases there are programs to pay for the cattle killed, to kill an animal is the last resource and in extreme cases. Also, the attack to the human suggest an animal that probably allready had previous conflicts with humans and if we believe in Dr Patterson in his book "The Lions of Tsavo", the lions are normally affraid of humans, but if they got used to them (like a cattle eater) they may attack humans for been easier prey.

In the past, Indian lions were real cattle eaters as they prey base was very low but in new years I read reports that they higher prey base of wild animals corrected the old habit of prey in cattle and that is something that has changed since the years 2000, as far I remember.

The cattle eating behaviour affect to all the Panthera cats in teh same degree, they have the same basic morphology and body needs, so there is no reason to think that an abnormal behavior will afect all the animals of a genus except one.

If the animal is constantly baited, day by day, and it will eat only baits, of course that it will affect the animal size. But if you are baiting an animals once in a year, that obvioulsy will not affect it at all. Reply

[GuateGojira]

By the way, for more details on the size of the Barbary lion, check the entire topic: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-the-siz...rbary-lion

For details on the size of the Cape lion, check this link, post number 81 and 84: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-the-siz...ion?page=6

That is all. Reply

[BorneanTiger]

(02-11-2020, 11:03 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: The body size of the lion (Panthera leo) - Final work:

I finally manage to compile all the information about the body size and weight for all the lion populations from which we have actual data. I manage to put it in one big image so here is the compilation of data about the body size and weight from Panthera leo:

*This image is copyright of its original author

This time I manage to put important remarks between the notes and the size of the Barbary lion reflects an "average" specimen, which now shows that it will be about the same size than the other populations of its subspecies. By the way, I know that a Barbary lion in the wild will probably not look like this, but as all the data available came from captive animals, I deciced to use a captive specimen. Other remark on the body measurements, especifically the total length/head-body/shoulder height from Indian lions reported by Jhala et al., (2019) were not included as were taken "along the curves" and I allready had measurements "between pegs" which are more reliable, but chest girths and weights did were included.

Also, for space issues, I just used the most extreme populations from the Southern lions and I did not included the populations of Zimbabwe and Botswana, so here you have the original table again, and can be used like a completement/Appendix to the previous image presented here:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Finally, we must not forget the particular population of lions in Ethiopia, which we only know captive specimens in the Addis Ababa Zoo, and we can't discard its measurements as we can use them like surrogates from the wild population if necesary, like we do with the Malayan and South China tigers, so I add this image too:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Finally about skulls, I have more information about many populations, which include that from J. H. Mazák (2010), Roosevelt & Heller (1914), Hartstone-Rose et al. (2014) and Stevenson Hamilton (1947), however with the last one I was searching in the book (yes, now I have the book! ) and he did not describe the method of measurements and I affraid that probably he measured his lion skulls "between perpendiculars" which was the method used by most hunters in his days and which, compared with measurements with callipers, may slightly increase the length, specially if the mandible is still attached to the skull. That is why I used only skulls measures by Zoologists using callipers.  

I think that, for the moment, these three tables/images summarize my data about the body size of the lion at this moment (January 2020), if someone have a doubt or request specific data from a population, feel free to ask.

Greetings and cheers to all.

Though I knew that Southwest African lions (like in the Kalahari region shared by northwest South Africa, southwest Botswana and southern Namibia, and Etosha National Park in northern Namibia) could be large, it's interesting that Namibian lions come on top in average and maximum weights here, because Southwest Africa is a fairly arid or semi-arid region. One might expect that animals living in hot, dry areas ought to be smaller than those in cooler areas with abundant vegetation, so how do lions manage to be huge in a region that is arid or semi-arid?

Etosha National Park, northern Namibia: http://www.africaphotography.co.za/etosha-august-2014/, http://liquidexplorer.com/collections/li...life-wide/, https://www.wildlifeadventures.com/namib...mibia.html, https://www.nathab.com/africa/the-great-...fe-safari/
   
   
   
   

Kebbel at Sesfontein Conservancy, northern Namibia: https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/83...hy-hunters
   

A lion that travelled 1,300 km (807 miles) between Angola and Namibia: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/rar...data/32633
   

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park: 

Reply

[GuateGojira]

(02-23-2020, 11:22 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: One might expect that animals living in hot, dry areas ought to be smaller than those in cooler areas with abundant vegetation, so how do lions manage to be huge in a region that is arid or semi-arid?

Very good question, and as we can see in the images, all those lions are very fat and well feed. A posible explanation is that those lions have more plasticity in they prey selection, been capable of split they prides in smaller groups to optimize the hunt. Other case is the one in Hobatere which is that those lions prey on domestic cattle but I think that is only in some ocasions, not all the time as they certainly have a fair wild prey base. I think that the diference with those lions from South Africa is that the figure of the lions in Namibia includes stomach content and those from South Africa (at least in the bigger sample of Smuts) are adjusted for stomach content.

So, overall, I think that the lions of South Africa are still the biggest. Reply

[BorneanTiger]

(02-24-2020, 08:32 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(02-23-2020, 11:22 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote: One might expect that animals living in hot, dry areas ought to be smaller than those in cooler areas with abundant vegetation, so how do lions manage to be huge in a region that is arid or semi-arid?

Very good question, and as we can see in the images, all those lions are very fat and well feed. A posible explanation is that those lions have more plasticity in they prey selection, been capable of split they prides in smaller groups to optimize the hunt. Other case is the one in Hobatere which is that those lions prey on domestic cattle but I think that is only in some ocasions, not all the time as they certainly have a fair wild prey base. I think that the diference with those lions from South Africa is that the figure of the lions in Namibia includes stomach content and those from South Africa (at least in the bigger sample of Smuts) are adjusted for stomach content.

So, overall, I think that the lions of South Africa are still the biggest.

But in the case of this lion that travelled about 1,300 km (807 miles) between Angola and Namibia in 2014, apparently it was all alone, so no need to share any food with a pride: https://www.theportugalnews.com/news/rar...data/32633

*This image is copyright of its original author

And, as I mentioned earlier, this was exactly the distance that was reportedly travelled by a Central Indian tiger between Tipeshwar Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra State and Telangana, in 5 months last year, setting a record for India at least: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-50626744

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply

[Ashutosh]

Actually @BorneanTiger, that tiger is still on the move!! Till last month, he had covered 1700 kilometres in 7 months. Last I heard, it was prowling around a UNESCO world heritage site with lots of tourists, but had then migrated elsewhere. This report is from January 3rd.

https://www.scoopwhoop.com/animals/tiger-from-vidarbha-walked-over-1700-km-in-7-months-longest-for-any-tiger-in-the-world/

He is a gypsy at heart. Reply

[BorneanTiger]

(02-24-2020, 10:34 PM)Ashutosh Wrote: Actually @BorneanTiger, that tiger is still on the move!! Till last month, he had covered 1700 kilometres in 7 months. Last I heard, it was prowling around a UNESCO world heritage site with lots of tourists, but had then migrated elsewhere. This report is from January 3rd.

https://www.scoopwhoop.com/animals/tiger-from-vidarbha-walked-over-1700-km-in-7-months-longest-for-any-tiger-in-the-world/

He is a gypsy at heart.

A fortunate gypsy that is, considering that the Southwest African lion was shot: https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/10...protection Reply

[GuateGojira]

Update:

Thanks to @Rishi I manage to update the image of the Indian lion with a better picture, I selected the one where we can see the lion in full side view, here is the result:

*This image is copyright of its original author

For details you can check here (post No. 810): https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-size-co...ns?page=54

Now, for details in the weights of the largest populations, please check the original table:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Greetings to all. Reply

[BlakeW39]

Wow, that a really cool post @GuateGojira :) any thoughts on why the southern African lions are the largest, especially related to other P. l. melanochaitus? I would also love to see some specifics regarding the east African lions size, what populations are larger or smaller, and if some compare to the south. Seeing as some of the largest rumored lions come from this area. Only if you have time! Reply

[Pckts]

(04-26-2020, 04:59 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: Update:

Thanks to @Rishi I manage to update the image of the Indian lion with a better picture, I selected the one where we can see the lion in full side view, here is the result:

*This image is copyright of its original author

For details you can check here (post No. 810): https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-size-co...ns?page=54

Now, for details in the weights of the largest populations, please check the original table:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Greetings to all.

All look to be the similar, if we increased the sample size for the bottom 3 to equal that of South, the range should be the same. Reply

[parvez]

https://www.inverse.com/science/lion-gen...20%251%24s

The real Lion Kings of Africa may be at the top of the food chain, but their populations are in trouble. Just 20,000 African lions remain in the wild: Over the last three decades, their numbers have plummeted by 40 percent, a drop propelled by habitat loss, illegal wildlife trade, and human conflict.

New research into the genetic links between different lion populations offers some hope for the vulnerable big cat. Researchers report that a new understanding of lion evolution may help scientists one day repopulate the parts of Africa where lion populations are most at risk.
‌Despite how much airtime lions get in our animated films and documentaries, scientists have known relatively little about the genetic history of Panthera leo. Now, a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides a sweeping view of what's happened genetically to lions over the past half a million years.
Modern lions, which live today in both Africa and India, and extinct, ancient cave lions share an ancestor that lived 500,000 years ago, the study reports. This finding helps explain how genetic flow works across lion populations and could lead to better conservation practices, say the authors.
Researchers analyzed the genes of 20 lions from different groups, both living and extinct. These include:

• 6 modern lions from populations in Africa and India that are still alive today. Indian lions, also known as Asiatic lions, are slightly smaller than African lions.
• 12 extinct modern lions, from Africa and the Middle East, which lived between the 1600s and 1959
• 2 extinct cave lions, from Siberia and the Yukon, which lived around 30,000 years ago
  

All three of the groups of lions had a common ancestor that lived half a million years ago, long before the modern lions diverged from the cave lions, the analysis shows.
In turn, the lion genes show that after that divergence there was no hybridization between cave and modern lions — which is potentially bad news for anyone hoping for a cave lion comeback.
[color=var(--slot1)]

*This image is copyright of its original author

[color=var(--slot1)]An Asiatic lion in an enclosure at the Kamla Nehru Zoological Garden in western India.Getty Images[/color]
[/color]
As for the two modern species – today's lions and the population that went extinct in the mid-20th century — they likely split off from one another around 70,000 years ago.
But it wasn't goodby forever: The scientists found that gene flow, or transfer of genes between populations, continued between the two groups even after they split.
Today, as a result, West African lions are [color=var(--slot3)]THE CLOSEST LIVING RELATIVES to the extinct group in North Africa. This contradicts the theory that lions living in India are the closes relatives to the extinct North African lions.[/color]
That matters because previously it was assumed that, if scientists were to reintroduce lions to North Africa, they would want to bring in the lions from India to restore the extinct populations.

It's "fascinating to learn more about how they spread to be once one of the most widely distributed and successful large mammal predators," coauthor Tom Gilbert, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen, tells Inverse.
"Lions are in trouble today," Gilbert says. "The more we learn about them, the more information we [the conservation community] will have at our fingertips to help preserve them."
[color=var(--slot3)]INDIAN LIONS HAVE MINIMAL GENETIC DIVERSITY — The genetic analysis of lions from India showed that the small population has very low genetic diversity, in part because of its tiny size.[/color]
Other research, on ancient remains of woolly mammoths, shows that tiny populations and low diversity may spell trouble for a declining species. When mighty mammoths were nearing their end, they suffered from several genetic problems resulting from inbreeding; when you're down to your last remaining members, it's tough to branch out genetically.

In the case of lions, humans are driving those smaller population numbers.
By looking at the data, "we can see just how big the impact is on their genetic diversity of recent human pressure," Gilbert says. He describes it as a "scarily big impact."
The researchers hope that having a better understanding of lion genes can help to better protect the big cats.
Gilbert says the data "provides information that could be used to make informed decisions should researchers want to start moving lions around to bolster very troubled populations or even replenish now extinct ones." Reply

[Pckts]

Velizar Simeonovski
Lion's mane - some lions with "Elbow bridge" (The elbow tuft connects with the mane at front leaving the area above "naked" )

*This image is copyright of its original author

Reply