Lion Predation

[Amnon242]

(07-29-2014, 07:51 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(07-29-2014, 12:50 PM)'Amnon242' Wrote:

(07-29-2014, 06:30 AM)'peter' Wrote: I have visited quite a number of facilities and zoos over the years. I've measured and weighed captive big cats. Before I did, I always asked those involved to get to estimates about the cats they had known so well for so long. The conclusion was only very few were able to get to realistic estimates. Most overestimated large animals and underestimated small animals. By quite a margin, I might add.


 

100% agree. It´s difficult to make an estimate of a felid. For example I was in a zoo with couple of friends, we saw amur tiger and I asked them for their estimates of the weight. Our estimates varied a lot.

...and I have to add that it´s completely foolish to make an estimate based on a picture.

I have seen quite a lot of captive felids and many times I saw them at pictures first and after that I saw them in persona. I was often suprised that the real size (resp. how they looked in reality) of the felids was much different from my estimate based on picture.  

 

This is 100% TRUE. But sadly, check those posters that believe that they favorites tigers weight more than 260 kg just based in pictures!!!
 
I told this to Pckts SEVERAL times and he still can't accept it. Pictures are NOT evidence of size, its is simply ridiculous. We need actual measurements to make comparisons and even then, it is not clear which is "larger".
 
For example, "Maurice" (Pt-33) the Amur tiger measured 208 cm in head-body and 104 cm in shoulder height, however he only weighed 179 kg. Now, "Sauraha" (M105) measured only 197 cm in head-body and probably about 100 cm in shoulder height (in the best case), however he reached the scientific record of 261 kg! At plain sight, which of them you will believe is larger??? The larger specimen or the smaller one, based ONLY in pictures???
 

I think that when people estimate the weight of a felid, the most importatnt factor for them is the height of the animal (which is quite misleading).

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