Modern Weights and Measurements of Wild Lions

[GuateGojira]

(01-18-2018, 03:48 PM)peter Wrote: B - EXCEPTIONAL INDIVIDUALS
 
Two individuals deserve special attention. The first is ♂ 10, known as 'Leo'. This young adult has a shoulder height of 145 cm. (...), a head and body length of 247 cm. (...) and a total length of 335 cm. (11 feet exactly). Exceptional, as he still has a bit of growing to do.

Lioness 'Spots' is even more exceptional, as she is 317 cm. in total length. I never heard of a female cat exceeding 10 feet in total length measured 'over curves'. The average of the Namibian females (just over 9 feet in total length measured 'over curves') is even more impressive than that of the males. A pity only 5 females were measured.     

C - ON THE METHOD USED TO MEASURE A BIG CAT

A big cat, just like a human, should be measured 'between pegs' (in a straight line). For some reason, this method seems to be out of date. Most biologists now measure wild big cats 'over curves'. This method can be applied in different ways, resulting in confusion. For this reason, it was severely discussed in the thread 'On The Edge Of Extinction - A - The Tiger' about a year ago. 

Poster 'WaveRiders' in particular had severe doubts about the way this method was applied in Nepal a century ago. The tables I posted had a number of male tigers ranging between 10.6 - 10.9 in total length 'over curves'. One wonders about his opinion on the 11 feet Namibian lion. Anyhow.

About the lions from Hobatere, I can't belive in those measurements, there are many errors. Check this summary, from the tables of 2015 and those from @peter:

*This image is copyright of its original author

They are measuring the lions following the protocol of the ALPRU, which to use a tape and take the length from the tip of the incisors (not the nose) following all the contuours/ondulations of the back (not a straight line). This is not the form used by Dr Sunquist in Nepal, and certainly not the one used by other scientists in Africa like Dr Packer or Dr Loveridge, which biggest lions do not surpass the 209 cm in head-body. Even the Amur tigers measured by the Siberian Tiger Project, which apparently were measured pressing the tape on the curves, did not produced such an exagerated sizes.

Certainly, while all the other specimens seems to match with moder/old measurements, the problematic ones are the males HPL-2 (Volkel) and HPL-10 (Leo) and the female HPL-11 (Mee), especifically in the total length and shoulder height. I see that the errors are mainly in the head-body length, excluding the head and the neck length.

In the past I was quite sure that the length of the neck was already included in the head-body, based also in pictures, but now that all the posters agree that the neck should be taken appart, the measurements of those 3 particular specimens are certainly incorrect in some form. Also the shoulder heights, which apparently are not those of the entire length of the from limb, still shows a high degree of magnitud diferent from other lions measured in straight line, which suggest that there do not represent the real standing height of those lions.

This is also why is not good to measure an animal in "pieces", they should use a large tape and measure the animal in just one row. I am disapointed of these "new" methods that only mimic the old unreliable ones from the hunters. It is also incredible how this sizes are in included in litterature and nobody actually take a time to analyze if those measurements are realistic. It seems that the analytic critics of Sterndale, Pocock, Brander and others, are just forgoten.

These lions from Namibia are big ones, there is no question about that, but certainly a length of 335 cm and shoulder height so up to 145 cm are just in the realm of imagination and old hunting stories. Reply