Asiatic Lion - Data, Pictures & Videos

[lionjaguar]

(10-05-2019, 10:17 PM)BorneanTiger 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.

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

I would not trust any lion size from the 17th century. They probably used different metric system than today's metric system.
The same for lion from 1841. I don't think you can tell exact alone lion size if it was just alone. For sure, lion I saw in zoo was big as well. If it was next to other lions, then I could't find it bigger since it looks the same size as other lions next to it. Reply