Modern Weights and Measurements of Wild Lions

[GuateGojira]

Thank for your words @peter. In fact, you are right in one point, something is better than nothing. Check how many measurements and weights we have from lions in Africa and even India been published, and now check how many measurements are from Indian tigers! It is a real pitty that none of the Indian scientist are publishing anything, in fact, it seems that just Dr Sunquist/Smith/Tamang (from Nepal) and Dr Karanth/Mallik/Barlow (India and Bangladesh) are the only ones that actually published body measurements from tigers in the Indian subcontinent. Must ot the time there are only weights, and very few, mostly from news reports that are not entirely reliable or accurate. Check for example Dr Chundawat which published the same information about its tigers in three diferent documents, specially in his last book, but he never provided any body measurement!

It seems that just the scientists from USA/Russia from the Siberian Tiger Project took the time to publish all the set of measurements, and assuming that they actually used the same method as the scientists in Africa (except Hobatere region, obviously) which is to use a tape along the curves following the contours, all the measurements are comparable. Those from Nepal and Thailand (proved) and Nagarahole, India (guessing) are not comparable, as they use a different method, holding the tape as straight as posible.

However, while the figures of the lions from the Kalahari match those from Hwange, the Serengeti and the west of Africa, as it seems that they all use about the same method, those from Hobatore, specially the specimens that I signaled, are by no means reliable at all and should not be quoted. Check this other case:

*This image is copyright of its original author

And this is from the great Enciclopedia "Mammals from Africa" of 2013, in the chapter of the leopard (in page 165 from Volume 5). So, how those exagerated measurements from those leopards were published in a modern scientific document is still a mistery for me. I mean, been big cat experts, nobody take a moment an actually think that a leopard of 183 cm in head-body is the same as a lion or tiger, and obviously a cat of that size will not weight only 69 kg? And this assuming that the heaviest weight came from the longest animal.

It seems thatt while the goal of modern scientists is the conservation and the understanding of the ecology of the great cats, I think that at some point some of them should take a little of time to review they methods and results in the morphological department, if not, we will return to the lions and tigers of 11 or 12 feet long, just like the old records, and Hobatere is a good example, especifically the specimens HPL-2, HPL-10 and HPL-11. Reply