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

[GuateGojira]

(09-05-2018, 04:54 AM)johnny rex Wrote: Is that 18 inch lion skull measured accurately? Are those measurements in Rowland Wards list reliable? That's definitely the largest lion skull if it was indeed measured accurately. What is pretty amazing is most of the 16+ inch lion skulls belong to East African lions (which are usually smaller than the Southern African lions) and the 2nd longest skull according to the list actually belong to a Central African lion which is normally smaller than the Southern African lion. But @GuateGojira  also mentioned a 432 mm lion skull which also featured in Rowland Wards although I forgot which edition.

Hello @johnny rex , In fact, that skull of 18 inches is not accurate at all, that size is only reached by Panthera atrox and Panthera spelaea fossilis.

The record of the South African lion of 432 mm is, in fact, incorrect. I resently found a book from Theodore Roosevelt (more information in the future) where he describes that the real size of that particular skull was of 406 mm in greatest length. Even worst, that skull is not from a wild animal but from a captive one. So, there is no record of 432 mm, Rowland Ward figure is incorrect, but we must take in count that the figures came with the label of "Owner's measurements".

For the moment, the longest skull that I know, from a wild specimen and from a reliable-scientific source, is a male lion from a male from Ngamiland ID: V.-L.K.E.244 with a greatest length of 401 mm (Roberts, 1952). Vratislav Mazák (2013; reprint of 1983) measured an skull of 402 mm, but altough this is from a wild origin animal, he was also kept in captivity and that may have influence his size too.

Yamaguchi et al. (2009) reports two speciments of 420 mm in greates length (copy-pasted by Hunter 2015), however based on the average figures is posible that those were captive specimens, as Yamaguchi mixed wild and captive specimens in his samples and the captive lions averages are larger than the wild ones. Finally Hemmer (1974) report that the maximum length recorded for a male lion skull is of 419 mm, but he did not measured those skulls personally, the original sources are a book of hunting records.

Hope this helps. Reply