Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[BorneanTiger]

(10-05-2019, 10:54 AM)Rishi Wrote:

(10-04-2019, 10:36 PM)lionjaguar Wrote: Asiatic lions are smaller than African lions. What about lions lived in other Asia? Lions in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Israel, and other Asian countries. As far as I know, Iraq has swamp region name, Mesopotamian Marshes map. It  is similar to Okavango delta, Los Llanos, Sudd, and Pantanal. Or what about European lions lived in Greece or southern Balkan until Roman killed them all.

Well, I've read lions of Afghanistan & Balochistan being described by British officers as smaller, than the ones in Indo-Gangetic plains. 
I think they were about Gir lions in size & belonged to adjoining populations... The lions living up northeast could have become larger after coming in contact with tigers. Most lions weighing below 180kg would have eventually died out in time.

Also, those parts had much larger prey in higher numbers before being almost completely replaced by cultivated croplands in last 2 centuries. But bank them; imagine a grassland-forest mosaic of various height & density, like those remaining in Terai, sightly drier towards the south.

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

We have accounts of large Asiatic lions in the past, even outside their current range in the Indian State of Gujarat:

- Circa 1620, Mughal Emperor Jehangir reportedly speared a lion in western India measuring 10 feet 3 inches (about 3.1 m) in length, and weighed about 306 kg (674.6 lbs): https://books.google.com/books?id=szBm5k...ir&f=false

- "Unusually large" Persian lion with melanistic patches in Khuzestan, 1841: https://archive.org/stream/journalofbomb...ally+large

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

- "Large, stocky, light tawny" lion eating a goat near Quetta, present-day Pakistan (then still part of India), alleged by a British Admiral travelling by train with 2 accomplices in 1935: https://books.google.com/books?id=4eTaAA...sc=y&hl=en, http://carnivoractionplans1.free.fr/wild...df#page=62

There are also some interesting descriptions of both African and Eurasian lions from these encyclopædias from the 19th century: https://books.google.a/books?id=TX7BmPgL...&q&f=false, https://books.google.com/books?id=GWslAA...on&f=false
   
   
    Reply