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Desert Lions

India sanjay Offline
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#1

This thread is to share news, information and work related to Desert Lion.
I suggest you to take a look at http://www.desertlion.info a wonderful website dedicated to work of Desert Lion. You can find lot of Information about desert Lions.
checkout these pages full of wonderful info
http://www.desertlion.info/carnivores.html
http://www.desertlion.info/news.html -  full of beautiful images and news (month wise)
http://www.desertlion.info/products.html - Scientific Reports - Desert Lion Project
http://www.desertlion.info/gpscollars.html - Different prides in the area
 http://www.desertlion.info/r1_history.html - History of data, useful for researcher on wildfact. Skeleton size etc, Learn how to make scientific reports
http://www.desertlion.info/2010report.html - reports prepared through scientific study

And many more, Its like treasure for Lion expert who willing to study about Lion.
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Wanderfalke Offline
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#2

Thanks  a lot for the link. great site[img]images/smilies/wink.gif[/img]

 
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United States Pckts Offline
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#3
( This post was last modified: 05-21-2015, 03:50 AM by Pckts )

Extremely sad to see so many killed by Villagers and hunters. What a shame, and most killed are males for obvious reasons.
The worst part is that the villagers are killing in retaliation and look how small the % of kills are actually Livestock.

*This image is copyright of its original author


I wish they had weights and body measurements posted though.
 
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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( This post was last modified: 05-21-2015, 09:25 AM by GuateGojira )

Maybe if we send an email, they could send us a few measurements. It is a possibility and from my experience, "lion-scientists" are more prone to share data.

Is there any email in those webpages?
 
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India sanjay Offline
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#5

@GuateGojira , [email protected]
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United Kingdom Spalea Offline
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#6

Very interesting and great site. Fascinating to see how lions can live under extrem conditions...
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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#7
( This post was last modified: 05-22-2015, 09:39 AM by GuateGojira )

Check this out, from the new book of Dr Sunquist and his wife, of 2014:


*This image is copyright of its original author


The incredible desert lions! [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]
 
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United Kingdom Spalea Offline
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#8

@GuateGojira : everything is a matter of adaptation. Desert lions learn to kill efficiently porcupines whereas we can see them a little clumsy in other places in front of such a prey. Saying that, they are as adaptable as the leopards but their handicap with regard to leopard is their bigger size. They stay sociable felids but they have to deal with the extrem conditions of desert life : To stay in contact even if several members of a pride are several kilometers away. The bonds are distended but the bonds are maintained.
Fascinating ! Without the humans' intervention they would be stayed the most expanding feline on Earth with the leopard.
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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#9
( This post was last modified: 05-23-2015, 07:46 AM by GuateGojira )

(05-22-2015, 11:15 AM)'Spalea' Wrote: Without the humans' intervention they would be stayed the most expanding feline on Earth with the leopard.
 
In fact, this is more complex that only "human absence".

The expansion of the lion was not thanks to its size or sociability, but caused by the dryer climate of the Pleistocene. In fact, in the dry years the expansion of the lion was incredible, but when the climate changed great extinctions of lion populations happened. This is clearly presented in the bottlenecks of the modern lion populations in Africa and Asia and even in the Steppe (cave) lion populations in Eurasia.

For example, humans and lions shared habitat in India for thousands of years and at 12,000 years ago, they simple were vanished from over 70% of the habitat. Someones blamed the tigers, but I think now that climate was the true "killer", as at that time Earth changed to a more "wet" climate over the entire world and the Savanna-like habitat disappeared from most parts of the previous habitats of lions. India changed from a very dry area with savannas (perfect for lions) to a wet forested area with plenty of water (perfect for tigers).

In few words, lions like most animals, suffered from expansions and contractions based in climatic situations, and as the entire Europe, North Asia and North America were Savanna-like habitat, the lion and they relatives succeeded in establishing populations that at the end, were extinct with the end of the last Ice Age and the rise of the forests. Human impact was harder only since the Holocene, when the Homo sapiens sapiens already established its dominion of the land with its Civilization and its weapons.

By the way, I think is important to mention that the cave "lions" from Peru that many old books mentioned, were in fact jaguars and this was proved by new studies and even Yamaguchi accepted this. So, IF we think that the cave lions were in fact "lions", the more distant expansion was up to the south of Mexico (Chiapas). There has been not found any fossils of any big cat in Central America.
 
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India sanjay Offline
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#10

@GuateGojira , did you get any reply from website ?
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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#11
( This post was last modified: 05-23-2015, 08:47 AM by GuateGojira )

No, I have not even write to them. [img]images/smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

Maybe this weekend I will ask them about behavior or something and then, I will introduce the size issue, just in case that they were reluctant to give some data.

 
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Pantherinae Offline
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#12

@GuateGojira if I'm not wrong here there where places where the tiger disapared and lions did not. Would have problems to think tigers would force away lions, not because lions are a stronger animal, but the fact that lions are living in groups. yes I know asiatic lions does not live such close to each other as their African cousins. And the prides lives more spread from each other, but I think that if tigers posed a threat to lone lions. the prides would gather and no other carnivore stands a chance against a lion pride. 

I agree with you Guate I think the climate and also hunting whiped out the lions as they live in the open they where probably a better target easier to hunt. Sad would be fun to see a place where the two biggest cats lived together. 
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United States tigerluver Offline
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#13
( This post was last modified: 05-24-2015, 09:37 PM by tigerluver )

An ecological concept to note. Prides, or any type of gathering of individuals of a population, don't form if not enough food is available, a threshold, one might say (Sunquist and Sunquist 2002, personal info). It does not matter what social need is there (e.g. defense from another carnivore), prey density or availability is the only factor that allows the pride interacton. 

This is essentially why the American lion seems to be a solitary animal (Jefferson 1992,2001). It shared its range with two other superpredators (short faced bear and Smilodon). The Eurasian cave lion looks to be solitary as well (see extinct felid thread), and again it shared its range with at least one other superpredator. The African lions pride lifestyle is directly a function of food availability, which is mostly a function of prey density and competition. 
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Pantherinae Offline
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yeah that's right @tigerluver, that might be the reason why Gir lions don't live in larger group's lack of large prey, like a type of bovine, aswell as the lack og nilgai, and you can understand that aswell when spotted deer is on the top of the lions menu, but you can still see 2-5 lionesses, and 2-3 males still, I talked with an expert on asiatic lions he said there was a coalition of 7 male lions, but as thier African cousins they had split up and taken care of different prides. 
 
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United States tigerluver Offline
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Prey density in Gir is low compared to Africa, so that probably is exactly why Asiatic lions don't have a pride system. I'd predict that the desert lions also deal with food scarcity, I wonder how that has affected their social structure.
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