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Lions of Sabi Sands
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 (04-12-2022, 03:23 PM)lionuk Wrote: Sand River pride. Those cubs are growing nicely, which is great to see. I can see six of them. Most of these cubs looks like older cubs, from first born litter, didnt 2 younger females had new cubs? 
3 years since nkhuma was with HB?! wow, time flies, i remember all those interactions well. remembering Hb riding on the back of that buffalo when he was a elderly gent, always makes me smile
Othawa cub by Roger Hlongwane
 *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: Nhenha was described by many guides as "one of the largest male in SABI SANDS" in this past few 3-4 yearsYou are overexaggerate now. Legend safari described him as bigger than Northern and Southern Avocas and Londolozi guides described him as bigger than Mohawk and Blondie Avoca (through that along with other guides opinions describing him as smaller than Matimbas, Charlestons or DM Avoca), but that does not picture him as bigger than other males of Sabi Sands like Ndzengas, KNP males, Tumbelas, PCs or Imbali male. (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: that doesnt mean he is above average or something on grand scale,its just between this gruop of males in this area. The point is many I noticed describe him as such. (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: We still didnt see Nhenha and Nkuhuma male shoulder to shoulder, so we dont know for sure, still looks to me that Nhenha is a bit bigger overall.We did not get perfect view yet, through we already got some pretty good ones, good enough to start making some opinions around them. (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: And if NK male is near the size of Nhenha, why would that mean that Nhenha is not that big, rather than that NK male is big?It kinda means both to certain degree - than Nhenha is smaller than some expected and that Nkuchuma male is bigger. I was even myself expecting the gap in size between them to be bigger, not to mention those which were saying that Nhenha is huge and those (through those are probably the same guys) which were saying (when Nhenha was seen chassing Styx male in Londolozi) that Nhenha being much stronger could kill Styx male if he would cough up with him. (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: Nwalungu males where not small males, even before they link together,Through probably not particularly big either, at least so far non of the guides said theywere any particularly impressive. (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: Styx male was always looking as impressive and massive specimen for his age, when NK male join him, they where around the same size, both of them where already much bigger then adult Styx females, even before at 2.5-3 yrsIt is typical that 3 years old males will be bigger than adult lionesses within the pride. (04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: of age NK was noticable bigger then Mhangeni Big Boy, who was more then half a year older. People prob got that impression that NK is small male because lack of his mane, which definitely helps for males to look bigger and more impressive.Comparisons to Big Boy are not fair as he wasn't typicaly developing male. His developement was hampered by the lack of food thorugh nomadic stage of life (that is btw main reson I would expect Tumbela males to also be among smalles males on the reserve at the momant). (04-12-2022, 02:36 PM)Slayerd Wrote: We won't be able to easily tell but at 12 years old, he has probably lost a lot of muscle mass compared to his prime.I do not think at all. Firstly I do not think he is 12 years old but rather good year younger than that. Secondly 11 years is not that old he would be losing muscle mass just because of his age. Also he is clearly not facing any lack of food income as he is looking at the moment more fat than ever before. His stomach arena is huge. (04-12-2022, 04:28 PM)Potato Wrote: You are overexaggerate now. Legend safari described him as bigger than Northern and Southern Avocas and Londolozi guides described him as bigger than Mohawk and Blondie Avoca (through that along with other guides opinions describing him as smaller than Matimbas, Charlestons or DM Avoca), but that does not picture him as bigger than other males of Sabi Sands like Ndzengas, KNP males, Tumbelas, PCs or Imbali male. Its not. As far as i know, neither guide compared DM and Nhenha (altrough DM is prob a bit taller lion, one person said me who was in Sabi Sands in early 2021 and saw all males that DM and Nhenha look the biggest , she also saw Kruger male but he was sitting down) and you now yourself said that LS and Londolozi described him bigger then Mohawk/Blondie and similar to S Avocas. Singita said Bboys (Nhenha) where biggest males they saw, and this was when OM was still alive, when 2 Bboys ventured in Singita with Kambulas. Both Londolozi and MalaMala sttated that Bboys where bigger then N'ws when N'ws invade Londolozi/MalaMala. On other thread you yourself said that you think Tumbela males are "small" and not in discussion for biggest males around (your words). And who we got left? I dont think Kruger male and Imbali male can be considered Sabi Sands males anymore, they where not spotted here for ages. So only males left who "might" be bigger then Nhenha are 4.5 yrs old PC boys (which we have 0 evidence or reports about their size, its purley guess) or S. Avocas, who are also mostly in Kruger. So saying that Nhenha with DM Avoca where biggest males in Sabi Sands in past 3-4 yrs is definitely not exaggeration, as big Charlestons left for Kruger, and S. Matimbas where quite old and out of prime (i agree, those males where bigger then Nhenha). Even now guides from western sector look impressed by Nhenha based of their comments. You can think and say what you want, but theres enough evidence.  (04-12-2022, 11:53 AM)Tonpa Wrote: Had to re-upload since its longer than the 1min imgur limit. So the YM trying to latch on was unsuccessful? At least for the time being. Shame really. Would be better for the males to become 3.  (04-12-2022, 04:28 PM)Potato Wrote:(04-12-2022, 02:34 PM)Tr1x24 Wrote: Nhenha was described by many guides as "one of the largest male in SABI SANDS" in this past few 3-4 yearsYou are overexaggerate now. Legend safari described him as bigger than Northern and Southern Avocas and Londolozi guides described him as bigger than Mohawk and Blondie Avoca (through that along with other guides opinions describing him as smaller than Matimbas, Charlestons or DM Avoca), but that does not picture him as bigger than other males of Sabi Sands like Ndzengas, KNP males, Tumbelas, PCs or Imbali male. Your arguments are just denial at this point. According to Legend Safaris that have traveled to almost all areas and have seen many lions including DM Avoca, the Imbali Male, the Kruger Males and the Southern Avocas that Nhenha is the largest lion in Sabi Sands. This is further said by Singita who say that in conversation with other reserves within Sabi Sands, they believed the Birmingham Males were the largest lions in the reserve. A guide who has seen the massive Black Dam male and many more coalitions commented that in terms of lions that impressed him, he would put Nhenha with the Charlestons and Matimbas. The Ndzega Males have been described to be much smaller than Nhenha and recently Tayla who used to work at Wildlife Safari commented that Eorenji is the smallest lion she has ever seen. The Tumbela Males have been described as small to the point that they were compared to Junior when he was 3. Now I'm no expert but I don't think Junior was the size of the Othawa Male and therefore not the size of Nhenha. Your argument against the Nwalungu Males is quite hypocritical considering how much you praise the PC Males size and yet there is no big comments on them being the most impressive lions either. In fact I'd say the comments are quite similar. "Lions who are getting more impressive as time goes on." And Nhenha is definitely nearing or is already 12 years old and at 12 years old, is definitely losing muscle mass. It's like saying a 65-70 year old man is as athletically built as he was in his 30-50s. Also you can clearly tell the size difference of Nhenha and the Styx Male last year when Nhenha chased him. Nhenha was clearly much larger. Also the comment on the Styx and Nkuhuma Male being larger than the Styx females at 3 years old is valid considering the Ndzega Males aren't that much larger than them. 
04-12-2022, 07:09 PM
( This post was last modified: 04-12-2022, 07:58 PM by lionuk
Edit Reason: add
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Throwback: A great picture of the Ximhungwe subadult male, son of the Selati males and brother of the Ximhungwe lioness. Sadly, no news on him soon after this picture was taken, though he probably went into Kruger and never seen again.
Credit: Idube  *This image is copyright of its original author
A captive lion lives 25 years on average, so let's compare this to 80 human years, and not just 15 years which is the maximum age of wild lions. A man, without the benefits of food, shelter, medicine, hardly exceeds 50 years. A 15-year-old lion, therefore, is comparable to a man of about 50, he has now passed his best years, is worn out by the efforts of a hard life, but he is not physically so fragile. Simply, a person of 70-80 years does not survive in the state of wild nature, and this also applies to animals in relation to age.
I would just add that specifically in case of Nhenha, he has the look widely regarded as aesthetically pleasing*, with dark enough, which leads to impressive, majestic remarks that could be interchangeable and misinterpreted as big, effectively inflating his size. Nicely built and developed males can be found impressive even in smaller size, prime example Eorenji, but usually beholder want them to be big, greatest whatever, mostly online ones though. Nhenha obviously has been big as well as impressive, and with the demise of Hairy Belly I would be suprised any male could be called clearly bigger, some could be compared to him in size but not that many in and out of Sabi Sands. His natal pride produces males of decent size and lionesses of that pride are generally viewed as big. It is not out of the blue, yet he clearly was bigger than others even among his bortherly coalition. My impression is DM is not that much bigger than his two brothers as Nhenha was among Birminghams, but that is just my two cents.
Plain Camp males I believe we are influenced by their ancetry and expect them to turn out big and impressive. There is no guarantee of them being as impressive as their Mantimahle fathers, nor there is an indication they won't be, so far they are developing all right, not scarred much, effective in what they are doing, but I guess the expectation precede them and we might see what we want to see (which I guess is natural for many to fall into, once we know an individual, are impressed by them, like them, we want to them to be special, uniue, big, impressive - prime case might be people online thinking Maribye, the very popular young male leopard of Djuma/Wild Earth with a lot personality, is/is gonna be a big male, while in reality he should always be rather on the other side of the spectrum). We don't have a direct comparison, afaik we don't know of any encounter with other males since significantly younger PCs encountered the two Nwalungus back then and they matured since, so it is useless to draw any conlusion from that anyway. Ndzehngas (the core two) are built for bulk, Amahle is certainly impressive muscular male with a dark mane, but as long as we consider height for size, he is not gonna rank that high because he is rather heavy than tall, besides Eorenji he is most likely second smallest one in his coalition, by not a big margin though. Eorenji is not muc lesser version of him, lighter in mane and smaller, likely compensating with temperament. Gore is taller, but certainly less impressive somewhat like Lambile Tintswalo in Manyeleti is, although his uncommon condition plays a role here. Wide Nose is plagued by injuries, but lately we can get a better ide what his standard condition size should be (although him being a serial lover leaves him on the thinner side quite often). Overall, I believe we can agree they are not the biggest (and afaik nobody touted them as such, they were the big thing coalition with potential due to their numbers, novelty and rather ellusiveness for sightings which gave the Ndzhenga name - I forgot with bush that is though; and I guess the thing that they arrived in Sabi Sands from south, which is nice change change as most major coalition in (recent) past arrive from other directions). Not the smalles, unimpressive ones neither, they have been rather coalition with members of different issues, but not on last breath as Tumbelas, although Eorenji is for sure vertically challenged, despite this he matured well and is in great condition - I believe since the supposed clash with DeLaPortes he hasn't been mentioned to sport an injury, as the only one of them actually. *even his son Torchwood would fall into that category (even Wild Earth Tessa was quick to call him a beauty (or something like that) not knowing who he was at the time as they had him live as a stranger some time ago) |
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