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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)

Pantherinae Offline
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( This post was last modified: 02-18-2020, 01:08 AM by Pantherinae )

(02-17-2020, 10:45 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(02-12-2020, 07:50 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: Oh sorry my bad, where have you read it was abnormally bulky?

The known facts are that we know that the lion was killed for killing cattle and that weighed 272 kg, now we know that all the cats that kill cattle are: 1-light in weight and in bad shape , 2-heavy in weight and in very bulky. Definitelly this lion, like those from southwest Africa (Etosha and Hobatere, for example) are very fat for killing cattle and like Gerald Wood said, those big tigers (and lions) in the past that weighed so much were cattle killers and consequently very bulky. Now, this "bulkiness" is not normal, so that lion was obviously abnormally bulky, proof of that is that the heaviest lions that I manage to found in the area were two males of about 235 kg, one came from Rowland Ward Records fo Big Game (234 kg) and its reliability will be allways open to debate, the other one is the male "Puyol" (235 kg) which according with the people that captured him it had stomach content on him. The next heaviest male is a male of 230 kg in the Aberdares, Kenya (no other information is available for the specimen) and after that all the other weights are less than 205 kg, and this is from a sample of 71 males from the entire area. This means that those big lions were exceptional or that included some stomach content. There is a difference of 37 kg between the 272 kg giant lion and the biggest one of my sample, which certainly makes it exceptional and because that body mass was created for its taste for the ease-prey domestic cattle, that bulkiness was not normal. Interesting is the fact that in Southern Africa the male lions reach bigger figures with weights up to 250 kg "empty" (especifically South Africa), which is the better candidate to compite with the Bengal tigers for the heaviest cat today. Tigers from Kaziranga and lions from the Crater don't count, as there is no information of them at this moment and all is just speculation.

Do we know how often he had killed cattle? Still the lion as far as I know was healthy and territorial and also some males rarely participate in hunting(only eats) yet never seems to be abnormally bulky. Almost every gir lion is a cattle killer, yet most males never seems abnormally bulky. I think maybe male lions are different to tigers as male tigers finding plenty of easy prey changes his lifestyle more drastically than a male lion, as he usually needs to be super fit to chase down fast prey like deer, whereas some male lions can probably go a year without hunting especially males with injuried hind legs. Some Lions just has to be fit enough to patrol and protect his territory. 

Lion huting was banned in Kenya 1977 and I think it has taken a couple of decades before big lions became a regular sight again, as large individuals must have been targeted in the past and the few good genes that survived has now gotten time to spread out again. Largest lioness as far as I know is also from East Africa, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest males where from that region as well.
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Messages In This Thread
RE: ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo) - Pantherinae - 02-18-2020, 01:07 AM
Panthera leo in Europe - brotherbear - 04-28-2017, 07:46 PM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - Polar - 04-28-2017, 10:24 PM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - GrizzlyClaws - 04-29-2017, 01:43 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - brotherbear - 04-29-2017, 03:01 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - GrizzlyClaws - 04-29-2017, 03:17 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - GrizzlyClaws - 04-29-2017, 03:29 AM
RE: Panthera leo in Europe? - brotherbear - 05-20-2017, 04:15 PM
RE: Vintage - Ngala - 01-02-2018, 03:22 PM
Lion Population Numbers - jordi6927 - 04-09-2018, 03:45 PM
RE: Lion Population Numbers - Rishi - 04-09-2018, 05:13 PM



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