Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

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The Prey of the Asian Lion (outside India)

Richard Lydekker (who was one of the most renowned naturalists of his time) wrote that the staple food for lions in Persia was the wild boar. The information is from his book, The Royal Natural History

Quote:It has been already mentioned that in the oak forests of Persia the staple food of the lions is formed by the wild pigs which frequent these woods.

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I would like to add that wild boars in Iran are no joke. 

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Vladimir Georgevich Hepter wrote about the ungulate prey of lions in the Caucasus. Mammals of the Soviet Union

Quote:All these supported a large number of deer, roe deer, wild boar, while in the steppes were large numbers of goitered gazelle and kulan. Huge reserves of ungulates were available to lions as food (cheetah also fed on them). The disappearence of lion is naturally associated with an increse in human population and a change in environmental conditions, which in turn led to an impoverishment of ungulates in the country ; thus, kulan had disappeared from the Trans-Caucasus in the thirteenth century.

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