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(01-06-2016, 03:05 AM)Pckts Wrote: I certainly wouldn't put an entire pride of females at 170kg and 250kg for males, thats just to high. Maybe a couple of specimens here or there, but certainly not an entire pride.
And Dereck and Beverly aren't biologist correct, just film makers. And to my knowledge they haven't been involved with any weighing of Lions so I would certainly take any estimate with a grain of salt, especially ones ranging that high.
I would take packers word in regards to Ngorngoro Lions being the largest, at least in terms of chest girth.
But like we see with Kaziranga Tigers, the marshy terrain seems to contribute to larger animals but still unproven, so who knows for sure.
Prey species and abundance will be the number 1 factor in my opinion and all animals need water, so that could play a factor as well.
Dereck Joubert is in fact a biologist and a geologist , he obtained his degree in a university in Johansburgh and worked with lions in Mala Mala and Kruger before studying them in Botswana since 1981, he discovered he could earn much more money becoming a film maker than publishing studies so he did so with his photographer wife Beverley and they won 13 Emmys .He provides much of the scientific content of their books.
The pride in question is the Tsaro pride seven huge lionesses and two colossal males , the two other prides in Duba have members that are of average size and the size difference is evident in the film and book " Relentless Enemies" in confrontation between the members of the prides: The Tsaro lions are much larger than their neighbours , then again, these are only nine lions who eat a cape buffalo every other day and work for it by swimming in deep cold water , they are super athletic but have never been measured.
I was fortunate to see lions in Ngorongoro Crater and they are massive, but the trophy records are similar to southern Africa.
Genetics remain the deciding factor for example the Okavango lions ( Delta and flooded marsh habitat) are not larger than the Kalahari lions ( Desert with poor prey base ).
The largest free ranging lion was a 272 kg post prime old male that lived in a mountain area near mount Kenya and killed livestock, his skeleton is at the Osteology department of the national museum of Kenya in Nairobi....(old age, East Africa, Poor Prey base, no access to buffalo,giraffe, nor elephants...yet he was the biggest ( Gnoske and Peterhans) , individual exceptions are always there but if I compare all the records I have seen I would put Hwange,Etosha, and Ngorongoro lions at the top
I am looking through images of relentless enemies but I'm unable to find the comparison image of the lions in question, if you have access to it could you show me?
Also, do you have any access to the trophy records for the crater? I'd love to see those since they'd be the only measurements from the crater that I have seen.
In regards to the 272kg lion, I assume you're talking about kochs?
That lion has a bit of controversy since he has contradictory emails on whether the lion was adjusted or not as well as an email where he was unaware of the record it self. To my knowledge the largest lion according to the Kenya wildlife service was 230kg from Kenya.
But it's possible for a lion to reach that size I'm sure and I tend to believe the record but it also shows the range from lion to lion inside of a specific place since there are many Kenya lions who never reached close to that size. Which is what I'm saying about trying to say a single population having all Giants, like you said it's about genetics. Maybe a couple of individuals here and there will be "freak specimens" but an entire population being significantly larger than another is not something I have seen from weights verified thus far. And comparing one individual to another is also tough if we don't know what either cat weighs.
No, not Koch, the 272 kg lion skeleton is in the collection of the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi in their osteology department, it is mentioned in several sources ( Gnoske, Peterhans,Patterson, and most recently Luke Hunter). He was a freak in the sense that he was old, lived of killing goats and cows, lived in a mountainous habitat, and was not part of a pride ..yet he attained a size larger that individuals who had everything going for them.
I do not believe in a "population of giants" for lions, for that to happen a population of large individuals need to be isolated from other lions for that larger gene to be concentrated generation after generation, gene flow of lions through close and connective habitats is still happening creating more uniformity, of course small samples of a few individual can suggest bigger individuals in Duba and Ngorongoro and smaller ones in Cameroon and India..but we are talking small numbers that are statistically insignificant.
In the lion strongholds in eastern and southern Africa there is good connectivity and gene flow unlike the fragmented and isolated pockets in West Africa and in the Gir area in India.
There are larger lions and smaller ones everywhere, big mammals vary in size to adapt to their different habitats.
The trophy records are usually for the skulls adding the greatest length and the greatest width
Size of Okavango Delta Lions and Lionesses
