Size comparisons

[GuateGojira]

(02-26-2022, 12:54 PM)LoveAnimals Wrote: As far as I remember the message with the info included (Kirby 1899) just after the measurent of this 345 mm skull for the lioness. So I hypothetically guess this skull measurement has as source Kirby 1899.

Now you're far more experienced than me in searching for sources on the internet and tracking down original papers so tell me if you can find anything regarding this source of Kirby.

I was checking Kirby (1899) but honestly I did not found any lioness skull in his book of 1896. I also checked in the book of Bryden (1899) "Great and Small Game of Africa", specificaly in chapter about the lion (page 545) writen by Kirby and also he did not mention any skull from females.

In Rowland Ward records of big game from 1914 there is a huge skull reported as "female" with a GSL of 358.8 mm (sic!) which seems to be an obvious exageration, specialy by the fact that the zygomatic wide is only 222.2 mm (small for such a total length reported); interestingly the source of the skull is Vaughan Kirby, according with Ward.

Just for comparison, the biggest lioness measured by Stevenson Hamilton was an specimen of 317.5 X 203.2 mm (GSL X ZW); the widest is a skull of 219.1 mm.

From the large table of Roberts, the most reliable one on lion skull measurest that I have saw, the largest skull from a female measured 333 X 203 mm, and the widest was of 212 mm, both from Kruger.

Finally Hartstone-Rose et al. (2014), from a sample of 23 female lions (9 captive and 14 wild) it shows that the biggest captive one measured 330.5 X 234.1 mm while the biggest wild is of 311.3 X 204.5 mm. They also mention a "female" with a skull of 372.8 X 249.2 mm, but is obviously from a male. Reply