Lions of Sabi Sands

[Mapokser]

Watching that last Londolozi Virtual Safari makes it very clear how difficult it is for these guides to judge lion sizes when seeing them in different instances, from different angles and distances, different levels of stomach content, mane size and what not.

The guide ( who, alongside everybody else, considers Ndhzengas to be below average ) thinks the Ndhzengas would probably beat the 2 Nkhulu because "Nkhulus are fairly small", which would imply he believes Nkhukus to be even smaller than Ndhzengas.

At the same time he claims the Gijimas are enormous, same thing he said when he saw them visiting Londolozi months ago.

However from the videos and photos of Nkhulus and Gijimas together, clashing and chasing each other, they are the same size.

He also says Kambulas have decent size and S.Avoca & Kruger male are pretty big, with Kruger being quite bigger which would imply he thought the Kruger male was more impressive than Kambulas, probably even the S.Avoca male was.

Still, from the videos, Kambulas didn't seem any less impressive than the Kruger male, which would make them bigger than S.Avoca who is clearly smaller than Kruger male, as we have seen them side by side.

It's likely that for these size comparisons to be a bit reliable despite not seeing them side by side, the guides have to be very familiar with the lions in question and see them regularly, and not only that, the difference in size must be big for them to be able to estimate who's bigger. Say Londolozi guides comparing PCM and Ndhzengas, they know them well, see them all the time and the difference in size is quite noticeable.

But with lions they are less familiar with and that aren't particularly huge like Makhunga or small like Eorenji, if they aren't in the same frame, it's hard to say who's bigger, most lions are the same size after all, average. Reply