Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[Sanju]

(03-03-2019, 12:05 AM)Lycaon Wrote: Were gaur and wild water buffalo on the menu for asiatic lions?

Gaur are locally extinct which were once a major prey to satisfy "gir" lion pride but not now. For "Asiatic" lions as a whole, they were very important prey item. Sadly, gaur were extinct most of Central and west India so even our Kuno lions don't get gaur.

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Hence, gir lions are looking proxy to that cattle and buffalo. As we know that lions always look for big game so that they can feed all mouths. Africa has lot of large herbivores left where as in Gir, biggest prey available is Sambar (max mass= around 300 kg).

In fact, Chital deer were recently reintroduced to Gir.

And coming to Asian Water Buffalo, they never lived in Gir forest or Saurashtra even in Early Holocene distribution based on Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene indicated by dashed line (after Hoffpauir, 2000). But was important for Asian Lions back then. Again sadly, Kuno lions don't get them coz they only are in Chttisgarh and Orissa or Odisha (some times); Northeast India.

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