Freak Specimens

[GuateGojira]

(11-28-2019, 11:04 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: According with Wood, this was not a wild lion, but Nyoka purchase him as a six month old cub from the Dublin Zoo in October of 1958, and was actually weighed several times trough its life.

I have the image of the page in the book of Wood but the system is not allowing me to put it. It seems like there are problems with Imgur and I can't upload imaged in the main page too.

Wow, images are working again. So here is the abstract of the book of Wood of 1977, about Simba the lion:

*This image is copyright of its original author

He did not quote any source, so I guess that is because is his own investigation and the information was probably provided by the Zoo or by the trainer. Reply

[Shadow]

(11-28-2019, 11:26 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(11-28-2019, 11:17 PM)Shadow Wrote: I have had some interest to find out information about animals which would be even beyond exceptional. With Simba only place coming to my mind with possible good information could be staff of Guinness World Records. But it might be the same as usual, they have in past published a lot of information with inaccuracies/open questions what comes to animals, especially wild animals. But because Simba was captive, who knows... I actually forgot to ask from there, that do they have information about possible weighing.

Then again, as you said, it was clearly obese lion and quite big. When we have obese people over 500 kg, it makes perfectly sense that any lion or tiger can be fed to be very heavy in captivity. That was probably one reason why I forgot to ask from Guinness, fit and big animals are way more interesting. I think, that captive animals show at least roughly where fitness starts to change to obesity.

In fact, I don't think that there was any Guinness staff involved with this lion. The book is creation of Gerald Wood and his own investigation, even when the book is part of the Guinness family of books. He was a good investigator and he personally contacted many of the sources, especially the contemporary ones in captivity. He provides many details of this lion, which incline me to belive that the data is accurate. The same happen with the tiger "Jaipur" and the liger "Hercules", which were actually measured and weighed, and also the Li-tigon "Cubanacan" which was measured but not weighed, just estimated. In the case of the last three animals, staff of the Guinness were actually involved, as far I know.

As far I know, the category of the "heaviest" animals in captivity is no longer accepted because they took note that the animals that applied to those records were very fat and sometimes even morbid obvese as the people feed them for that especific objective.

Yes, they have made changes. For instance Jaipur is a sad "case". He would have deserved an owner caring about his health, not the one interested in getting name in the Book of the Records. What comes to wild animals, most of the old records are at best in category "possible in some way... maybe... or not" :) Reply

[Shadow]

(11-28-2019, 11:36 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(11-28-2019, 11:04 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: According with Wood, this was not a wild lion, but Nyoka purchase him as a six month old cub from the Dublin Zoo in October of 1958, and was actually weighed several times trough its life.

I have the image of the page in the book of Wood but the system is not allowing me to put it. It seems like there are problems with Imgur and I can't upload imaged in the main page too.

Wow, images are working again. So here is the abstract of the book of Wood of 1977, about Simba the lion:

*This image is copyright of its original author

He did not quote any source, so I guess that is because is his own investigation and the information was probably provided by the Zoo or by the trainer.

I check my emails and ask from the person (with whom I have discussed) about that book and what she thinks about it. There is clear contradiction with it, what she said. But then again Nyoka seemed to be partially entertainer too, so he could have used the story about wild lion caught to amaze people during the show. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(11-28-2019, 11:37 PM)Shadow Wrote: Yes, they have made changes. For instance Jaipur is a sad "case". He would have deserved an owner caring about his health, not the one interested in getting name in the Book of the Records. What comes to wild animals, most of the old records are at best in category "possible in some way... maybe... or not" :)

This is the only picture that I know of Jaipur:

*This image is copyright of its original author

It was huge by all means, but also was very obvese, look how big was his belly.

About the old records, the main problem is that we need verification. Check the famous records tiger of 389 kg and the record lion of 313 kg. They were "verified" and accepted by Guinness, but when we see the evidence, the pictures shows animals of quite normal size. The giant animals can and do exist, but we must be carefull with thsoe figures. That is why I don't include exceptional animals in my tables, and the scientific figures are the normal maximum accepted. Figure about that, are clasified as "exceptional" and may or may not reliable, depending of the source. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(11-28-2019, 11:41 PM)Shadow Wrote: I check my emails and ask from the person (with whom I have discussed) about that book and what she thinks about it. There is clear contradiction with it, what she said. But then again Nyoka seemed to be partially entertainer too, so he could have used the story about wild lion caught to amaze people during the show.

You have a valid point about Nyoka, after all a "good story" is also part of the show.

For the moment, I will believe in Wood, after all he was a reliable investigator, and although he made mistakes with some wild "records", he kept the best information available and contacted the right people for the contemporary figures. Reply

[Shadow]

(11-28-2019, 11:44 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(11-28-2019, 11:37 PM)Shadow Wrote: Yes, they have made changes. For instance Jaipur is a sad "case". He would have deserved an owner caring about his health, not the one interested in getting name in the Book of the Records. What comes to wild animals, most of the old records are at best in category "possible in some way... maybe... or not" :)

This is the only picture that I know of Jaipur:

*This image is copyright of its original author

It was huge by all means, but also was very obvese, look how big was his belly.

About the old records, the main problem is that we need verification. Check the famous records tiger of 389 kg and the record lion of 313 kg. They were "verified" and accepted by Guinness, but when we see the evidence, the pictures shows animals of quite normal size. The giant animals can and do exist, but we must be carefull with thsoe figures. That is why I don't include exceptional animals in my tables, and the scientific figures are the normal maximum accepted. Figure about that, are clasified as "exceptional" and may or may not reliable, depending of the source.

That photo is the reason why I say, that Jaipur was a sad case :/ What comes to Guinness and tiger claimed to have been 389 kg, they recently changed the text and it isn´t anymore said to be certain. And yes, the tiger in Smithsonian museum doesn´t look like to be that huge. If I have understood right, it´s a little bit shorter than Jaipur (body length). 

I have said it before and I do think, that 300 kg is upper limit or very close to it, what even an exceptional big cat can weight (tiger or lion) and still could be able to survive in the wild (still agile and fast enough to catch something). One reason is, that every captive big cat which I have seen and has really been over 300 kg (for sure or most probably) have had signs of obesity. Imo 389 tiger in wild should be  h u g e  if real. Way bigger than Jaipur what comes to shoulder height and body length.

Someone else can see it differently, but I´m too cynical to believe all what have been claimed in the past. Reply

[GuateGojira]

(11-28-2019, 11:56 PM)Shadow Wrote: That photo is the reason why I say, that Jaipur was a sad case :/ What comes to Guinness and tiger claimed to have been 389 kg, they recently changed the text and it isn´t anymore said to be certain. And yes, the tiger in Smithsonian museum doesn´t look like to be that huge. If I have understood right, it´s a little bit shorter than Jaipur (body length). 

I have said it before and I do think, that 300 kg is upper limit or very close to it, what even an exceptional big cat can weight (tiger or lion) and still could be able to survive in the wild (still agile and fast enough to catch something). One reason is, that every captive big cat which I have seen and has really been over 300 kg (for sure or most probably) have had signs of obesity. Imo 389 tiger in wild should be  h u g e  if real. Way bigger than Jaipur what comes to shoulder height and body length.

Someone else can see it differently, but I´m too cynical to believe all what have been claimed in the past.

Actually the case of Jaipur and all the tigers of the called "Lady tiger" is all a very sad case, check this out: https://bigcatrescue.org/joan-byron-mara...n-society/

About the 389 kg tiger, Gerald Wood says that is valid and was confirmed by Dr Henry W Setzer, Curator of Mammals at the US Museum in that time. The problem is that in the files of the Smithsonian they describe that the skull of that tiger was of just 14 inches long (356 mm), which just average for a male tiger, not a record. Also, while the stuffed specimen can't say much (skin can be streched or shrinked), the picture of the specimen shows a large tiger, but not as big for a specimen of that weight, check it:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I will estimate this tiger at about 272 kg at the most, as it match the size of other big tigers like the Sauraha male. So, the picture shows a large male, but not a giant of over 300 kg. The skull reported, IF is of the same animal, suggest a much smaller animal of average size. Now, there is documentation that confirmed that the tiger was weighed in a sugar mill, but we still need to know how reliable was that scale.

For all those "details" is that I no longer accept as valid the record of the tiger of 857 kg. The same happen with the lion of 313 kg, when I investigated about it, it results that while Campbell (1937) says that was checke by several people, he never said who was that "people", he never said that were officials or animal experts, they could be only friends of Lennox Anderson, and again, it was weighed in a local railway scale and we can't know how accurate it was. In this case, there is no other evidence of this lion apart from the original report and this picture:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Again, based in this stuffed specimen, it looks like an averge sized lion of barely 180 kg at the most!!! The same happened when I checked the record of the "giant" lion maneater of Mufuwe, that apparently measured 320 cm in total length, but at the end resulted that those measurements were taken along the curves and the skull of the "giant" lion was of only about 364 mm (based in the figure 9 of Dr Patterson's book of 2004), average for an East African lion.

So, or those "giant" lions and tigers had very small heads, or the scales used (sugar mill and railway scale) were inaccurate, or it was just a case of incorrect information. Whatever happened, I don't think that any of those giants is accurate.

For the moment, the heaviest lions and tigers, recorded by scientists are about 272 kg, and already belong to really big cats, and I can estimate, like you, that about 300 kg will be the maximum reliable for a wild cat in modern days. Figures of specimens of over 350 kg belong to the old Pleistocene cats of Eusaria and America. Reply

[Shadow]

(11-29-2019, 12:46 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(11-28-2019, 11:56 PM)Shadow Wrote: That photo is the reason why I say, that Jaipur was a sad case :/ What comes to Guinness and tiger claimed to have been 389 kg, they recently changed the text and it isn´t anymore said to be certain. And yes, the tiger in Smithsonian museum doesn´t look like to be that huge. If I have understood right, it´s a little bit shorter than Jaipur (body length). 

I have said it before and I do think, that 300 kg is upper limit or very close to it, what even an exceptional big cat can weight (tiger or lion) and still could be able to survive in the wild (still agile and fast enough to catch something). One reason is, that every captive big cat which I have seen and has really been over 300 kg (for sure or most probably) have had signs of obesity. Imo 389 tiger in wild should be  h u g e  if real. Way bigger than Jaipur what comes to shoulder height and body length.

Someone else can see it differently, but I´m too cynical to believe all what have been claimed in the past.

Actually the case of Jaipur and all the tigers of the called "Lady tiger" is all a very sad case, check this out: https://bigcatrescue.org/joan-byron-mara...n-society/

About the 389 kg tiger, Gerald Wood says that is valid and was confirmed by Dr Henry W Setzer, Curator of Mammals at the US Museum in that time. The problem is that in the files of the Smithsonian they describe that the skull of that tiger was of just 14 inches long (356 mm), which just average for a male tiger, not a record. Also, while the stuffed specimen can't say much (skin can be streched or shrinked), the picture of the specimen shows a large tiger, but not as big for a specimen of that weight, check it:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I will estimate this tiger at about 272 kg at the most, as it match the size of other big tigers like the Sauraha male. So, the picture shows a large male, but not a giant of over 300 kg. The skull reported, IF is of the same animal, suggest a much smaller animal of average size. Now, there is documentation that confirmed that the tiger was weighed in a sugar mill, but we still need to know how reliable was that scale.

For all those "details" is that I no longer accept as valid the record of the tiger of 857 kg. The same happen with the lion of 313 kg, when I investigated about it, it results that while Campbell (1937) says that was checke by several people, he never said who was that "people", he never said that were officials or animal experts, they could be only friends of Lennox Anderson, and again, it was weighed in a local railway scale and we can't know how accurate it was. In this case, there is no other evidence of this lion apart from the original report and this picture:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Again, based in this stuffed specimen, it looks like an averge sized lion of barely 180 kg at the most!!! The same happened when I checked the record of the "giant" lion maneater of Mufuwe, that apparently measured 320 cm in total length, but at the end resulted that those measurements were taken along the curves and the skull of the "giant" lion was of only about 364 mm (based in the figure 9 of Dr Patterson's book of 2004), average for an East African lion.

So, or those "giant" lions and tigers had very small heads, or the scales used (sugar mill and railway scale) were inaccurate, or it was just a case of incorrect information. Whatever happened, I don't think that any of those giants is accurate.

For the moment, the heaviest lions and tigers, recorded by scientists are about 272 kg, and already belong to really big cats, and I can estimate, like you, that about 300 kg will be the maximum reliable for a wild cat in modern days. Figures of specimens of over 350 kg belong to the old Pleistocene cats of Eusaria and America.

Yes, I have seen those photos before and much of that information and looks like, that our conclusions are quite same. One thing what I have tried to find more information is possible weight change of Siberian/Amur tigers during the year. When all other mammals up north have clear weight changes because of winter time, tigers should be no exception and also available information indicates so. For some reason it´s difficult to find studies/information concerning that.

I asked from WCS Russia and Dale Miquelle replied. But his answer was, that they didn´t know. They haven´t studied that subject at all. In one article from zoo in China, was mentioned, that their tigers were about 10% heavier in winter time compared to summer time. I am interested about this because I think, that it could offer at least partial explanation for Siberian tiger reputation from the past. If there has been in the past some really exceptional tiger(s) about 300 kg in the summer time, with "winter fat" it might actually have been 330-350 kg. 

It´s just difficult to speculate when there is very little information what comes to tigers. If you search information for wolves, reindeer etc. you can find easily some figures. What comes to tigers, it´s just mentioned, that they have thick fat layer during winter, but almost nothing specific. Reply

[Apollo]

Rocky the tiger

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[Apollo]

Tiger

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[Apollo]

Tusker

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[Shadow]

(11-30-2019, 02:54 PM)Apollo Wrote: Tiger

That is an excellent to watch and see how same tiger can look like enormous or "just big" depending on angle etc. Looks like to be approximately 230 cm, when standing on hind legs and stretched nicely. If assuming, that the person standing next to him is 180 cm tall. Of course depending height of that guy, that tiger could be estimated to be anything in between 220-240 cm while on hind legs. Big tiger, could be about same size as famous Igor from Odense zoo who was a 250 kg tiger or slightly more in his prime. But in his prime Igor looked to be more fit, not so much loose skin swinging under chest and belly as this one has. Reply

[Hello]

(11-30-2019, 07:22 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(11-30-2019, 02:54 PM)Apollo Wrote: Tiger

That is an excellent to watch and see how same tiger can look like enormous or "just big" depending on angle etc. Looks like to be approximately 230 cm, when standing on hind legs and stretched nicely. If assuming, that the person standing next to him is 180 cm tall. Of course depending height of that guy, that tiger could be estimated to be anything in between 220-240 cm while on hind legs. Big tiger, could be about same size as famous Igor from Odense zoo who was a 250 kg tiger or slightly more in his prime. But in his prime Igor looked to be more fit, not so much loose skin swinging under chest and belly as this one has.

I think Igor is much bigger (taller,longer and heavier by 50-70 lbs)This boy is big may be around 480-500 lbs.Any cat over 500 lbs is impressive. Reply

[Shadow]

(11-30-2019, 08:54 PM)Hello Wrote:

(11-30-2019, 07:22 PM)Shadow Wrote:

(11-30-2019, 02:54 PM)Apollo Wrote: Tiger

That is an excellent to watch and see how same tiger can look like enormous or "just big" depending on angle etc. Looks like to be approximately 230 cm, when standing on hind legs and stretched nicely. If assuming, that the person standing next to him is 180 cm tall. Of course depending height of that guy, that tiger could be estimated to be anything in between 220-240 cm while on hind legs. Big tiger, could be about same size as famous Igor from Odense zoo who was a 250 kg tiger or slightly more in his prime. But in his prime Igor looked to be more fit, not so much loose skin swinging under chest and belly as this one has.

I think Igor is much bigger (taller,longer and heavier by 50-70 lbs)This boy is big may be around 480-500 lbs.Any cat over 500 lbs is impressive.

When watching again briefly this one has even more loose skin/fat swinging around and that makes this tiger to look more robust than it is really. I agree, that in comparison with Igor this tiger gets second place. Reply

[Dennis]

(11-29-2019, 01:25 AM)Shadow Wrote:

(11-29-2019, 12:46 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(11-28-2019, 11:56 PM)Shadow Wrote: That photo is the reason why I say, that Jaipur was a sad case :/ What comes to Guinness and tiger claimed to have been 389 kg, they recently changed the text and it isn´t anymore said to be certain. And yes, the tiger in Smithsonian museum doesn´t look like to be that huge. If I have understood right, it´s a little bit shorter than Jaipur (body length). 

I have said it before and I do think, that 300 kg is upper limit or very close to it, what even an exceptional big cat can weight (tiger or lion) and still could be able to survive in the wild (still agile and fast enough to catch something). One reason is, that every captive big cat which I have seen and has really been over 300 kg (for sure or most probably) have had signs of obesity. Imo 389 tiger in wild should be  h u g e  if real. Way bigger than Jaipur what comes to shoulder height and body length.

Someone else can see it differently, but I´m too cynical to believe all what have been claimed in the past.

Actually the case of Jaipur and all the tigers of the called "Lady tiger" is all a very sad case, check this out: https://bigcatrescue.org/joan-byron-mara...n-society/

About the 389 kg tiger, Gerald Wood says that is valid and was confirmed by Dr Henry W Setzer, Curator of Mammals at the US Museum in that time. The problem is that in the files of the Smithsonian they describe that the skull of that tiger was of just 14 inches long (356 mm), which just average for a male tiger, not a record. Also, while the stuffed specimen can't say much (skin can be streched or shrinked), the picture of the specimen shows a large tiger, but not as big for a specimen of that weight, check it:

*This image is copyright of its original author

I will estimate this tiger at about 272 kg at the most, as it match the size of other big tigers like the Sauraha male. So, the picture shows a large male, but not a giant of over 300 kg. The skull reported, IF is of the same animal, suggest a much smaller animal of average size. Now, there is documentation that confirmed that the tiger was weighed in a sugar mill, but we still need to know how reliable was that scale.

For all those "details" is that I no longer accept as valid the record of the tiger of 857 kg. The same happen with the lion of 313 kg, when I investigated about it, it results that while Campbell (1937) says that was checke by several people, he never said who was that "people", he never said that were officials or animal experts, they could be only friends of Lennox Anderson, and again, it was weighed in a local railway scale and we can't know how accurate it was. In this case, there is no other evidence of this lion apart from the original report and this picture:

*This image is copyright of its original author

Again, based in this stuffed specimen, it looks like an averge sized lion of barely 180 kg at the most!!! The same happened when I checked the record of the "giant" lion maneater of Mufuwe, that apparently measured 320 cm in total length, but at the end resulted that those measurements were taken along the curves and the skull of the "giant" lion was of only about 364 mm (based in the figure 9 of Dr Patterson's book of 2004), average for an East African lion.

So, or those "giant" lions and tigers had very small heads, or the scales used (sugar mill and railway scale) were inaccurate, or it was just a case of incorrect information. Whatever happened, I don't think that any of those giants is accurate.

For the moment, the heaviest lions and tigers, recorded by scientists are about 272 kg, and already belong to really big cats, and I can estimate, like you, that about 300 kg will be the maximum reliable for a wild cat in modern days. Figures of specimens of over 350 kg belong to the old Pleistocene cats of Eusaria and America.

I asked from WCS Russia and Dale Miquelle replied. But his answer was, that they didn´t know. They haven´t studied that subject at all. In one article from zoo in China, was mentioned, that their tigers were about 10% heavier in winter time compared to summer time. I am interested about this because I think, that it could offer at least partial explanation for Siberian tiger reputation from the past. If there has been in the past some really exceptional tiger(s) about 300 kg in the summer time, with "winter fat" it might actually have been 330-350 kg.

Source for the article from a zoo in China saying that? Is that Harbin zoo correct? Reply