Desert Lions

[Dr Panthera]

A male of 200 kg and a female of 154 kg and they do not seem to be the largest lions around.
Impressive how lions living in a desert environment with poor prey biomass rival in size lions from the best habitats elsewhere in Africa with much higher prey density.
Which again points to the importance of genetic make up versus conditions in relation to size, in other words where conditions are great the lion ( or other big cats ) population thrive as a whole with all lions small and big.
Large big cats are reported from many areas with relatively poor prey base : Lions from the Namibian desert, Mount Kenya, and historically the Atlas mountains, tigers from the Amur region and the Caspian region, leopards from Namibia and the central African rainforests, cheetahs from Namibia. Reply