Size of Okavango Delta Lions and Lionesses

[Dr Panthera]

(02-06-2016, 04:50 AM)tigerluver Wrote:

(02-06-2016, 04:00 AM)Dr Panthera Wrote:

(02-05-2016, 04:59 AM)tigerluver Wrote: @Dr_Panthera, do any of those sources produce measurements? If so, could you please share the full citation?

Those are trophy records from Safari Club International, you can only access the full reports ( the hunter report including measurements and the taxidermist and reviewer reports including more measurements) if you hunt and submit trophy yourself.
I requested info and better access even if I had to pay for it without me having to shoot an animal but I got zero cooperation once they knew my research interests versus hunting interests.
If full records are obtained we will have thousands of measurements for lions, leopards, and pumas , hundreds for cheetahs and jaguars ( plus thousands for brown bears and black bears and hundreds for other bears).
I will contact them again and share any info I obtain

I was actually referring to osteological measurements as you stated papers cited this specimen. I doubt hunters bothered with those but since you said it is housed in a museum it caught my interest. In what form was this specimen referred to by those authors? Just its mass?

Oh are you talking about the lion in the National Museum of Kenya ? Its catalogue number is NMK OM 7935
Petehans and Gnoske site it in their excellent paper " The Science of Man-Eating Among Lions with a Reconstruction of The National History of the Tsavo Lions" , on page 27 they talk about it, just mass 272 kg no skull measurements mentioned, post-prime age but with good teeth and skeleton (post death), and a serious cattle killer.This excellent paper is available from the Field Museum in Chicago which houses the two Tsavo man eaters and also the Mfuwe man eater.
Luke Hunter uses it as the biggest free-ranging lion verified by scientists, CITES also uses the same recoed, what is quite interesting about this lion is that he was an old lion, lived off cattle killing, and lived alone in mountainous habitat...so everything was going against him old age, no pride to rely on, poor prey base, and sub-optimal habitat.
I did get some numbers from hunters but I think they are  exaggerated or inaccurate, up to 295 kg and a few over 275, I do not think that present day lions or tigers reach these sizes commonly, I presume these were gorged animals and they were semi-wild specimens raised for the canned hunting industry since the majority were in South Africa. Reply