The size of the Barbary lion

[Betty]

(01-20-2022, 11:07 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:

(01-20-2022, 09:44 PM)acutidens150 Wrote: I just remembered. Not doubting anything you say, but does this also mean that the 250 cm body length male woth the 75 cm tail, and the 230 cm body length male (not classified as in a straight line, could also be over the curves) is also unreliable? Just curious.

Take this in count:

From 177 adult males lions measured between pegs, none surpassed the 220 cm in head-body, and from 112 males measured by scientists non surpassed the 210 cm in head-body (Hobatere do not count, those were measured incorrectly), so something over that is very fishy.

Other thing is the "over curves issue", which could be a possibility, but check that he did not says that an especific animal measured that, in fact Gerard only says that lions in that area reach that size but he never presented the evidence and that is the problem.

Now with the measurement of 250 cm, that is definitelly unreliable, no modern cat reach that head-body, that is too big and sizes like that were reached only by Pleistocene great cats, as you know. Gerard was so exagerated that he even reported lions of 17 ft (5.2 m) long, according with Guggisberg (1961).

So, if the measurement of 230 cm was based in a real animal, definitelly was taken "over the curves" or from a skin, both methods are unreliable, and the size of 250 cm is definitelly out of question.

Now other posibility that I had in my mind was that the total length was of 250 cm and the tail of 75 cm, that will be more realistic, but based in the text that was not the case.

There is a male lion killed in Algeria（1856）, with an estimated weight of 200kg and a total length of 2.5 meters. This data is very interesting, perhaps it has some connection with the 2.5-meter head and body length in the legend of the Barbary lion. 

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