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Modern Weights and Measurements of Wild Lions
Modern Weights and Measurements of Wild Lions
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Modern Weights and Measurements of Wild Lions
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 (09-11-2020, 08:42 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:Hey Guate, I just wanted to know if you included the weights from Africat Hobatere 2016 in Namibia lion weights.(09-09-2020, 08:58 PM)Scout Wrote: Guate, I noticed that in the conclusive tables you made for lions and tigers at species levels, the HB-length of tigers is listed as 190cm vs 191cm for P. leo krugeri. So it means that kruger lions are actually slighly longer on average than bengal tigers in HB-length? Thank you  (10-06-2020, 07:07 PM)Scout Wrote: Hey Guate, I just wanted to know if you included the weights from Africat Hobatere 2016 in Namibia lion weights. Yes, they are all included with no exception. Please take in count that some includes stomach content, as we can see in the pictures of the Hobatere lions.   (10-19-2020, 11:40 AM)Khan85 Wrote: Hey @Pckts can you post the scans from Smuts's book here as well? Only approved accounts can view it on carnivora...Smuts captured and weighed 344 Lions, of the culled lions he was able to obtain stomach content and slightly more than half were empty. For the remaining Lions, he estimated stomach content based off of the average weight of the baited animal then estimated how much meat had been eaten off of it before capture. The 30kg mark was based on an impala carcass. Lions in Kruger actually prey on impala the most but because of Giraffe size, they contribute the most meat to a Lions diet. Buffalo make up very little prey for Kruger Lions. The largest lion he weighed of the 388 was 225kg empty. He also mentioned a 214, 218 and 192kg specimens as well.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author Kruger pride distribution  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
Also, I recently read about these two "mamuding lions" who killed 244 cattle in one year and weighed 800lbs and 700lbs
Funny thing is I haven't seen any reliable piece of info about these lions, no pics, any documents how they were weighed, any regard of food content, any records nothing. Even Guinness recognises the 313kgs lion as the biggest one from the wild and he can be observed in many documents and books. Nothing mentions of these two lions. Are these real or just gross exaggerations? (10-19-2020, 08:42 PM)Khan85 Wrote: Also, I recently read about these two "mamuding lions" who killed 244 cattle in one year and weighed 800lbs and 700lbs I don't take those claims serious anymore, we have enough data on Lions and Tigers to know their size range. If new locations are presented, for example *Ngorongoro or Botswana* then I'd be more incline to accept unique data but since we have tons of Lions weight throughout Tanzania, I'm certainly very hesitant to accept a 700 or 800lb Lion claim when no other Lion has reached that size with many valid sources to go off of.
Even I think the same. There is no other source or information regarding these lions. Im 100% sure that these are just exaggerations from hunters.
 (10-19-2020, 08:42 PM)Khan85 Wrote: Also, I recently read about these two "mamuding lions" who killed 244 cattle in one year and weighed 800lbs and 700lbs There are many exaggerated weights from past, "good old days" so to say. Guinness really can´t be considered as reliable source what comes to old information concerning animal measurements and weights, they accepted too vague information without checking things properly in past. When I was child there was for instance told, that Great white sharks could be 12 meters long. They have accepted tiger and lion weights which aren´t considered valid in scientific research. When looking closer sources and information behind those "records" it´s easy to see why not valid to use in science as reliable, but alleged. Then again they are slow to change what they have once printed, but they do it step by step when they have to. One other good example is, that they accepted a case in which was claimed, that Japanese soldiers tried to cross some jungle/swamp etc. area with a lot of crocodiles during WWII. Claim was, that crocodiles would have killed hundres of armed soldiers and it would have been most people killed by crocodiles ever. They admitted only quite recently, that it´s something that most likely never happened. Crocodiles ate some soldiers killed in battles, but they didn´t kill those soldiers. So they in first step only partially admitted, that they had printed in their Book of Records rumors. Even though there is no evidence whatsoever that it would have happened. And while there is evidence about battle in same area same time in which group of Japanese soldiers were killed and crocodiles there afterwards. So my advice is to not take Guinness too seriously what comes to many old "records". Maybe only valid big cat (hybrids excluded) over 700 lbs ever been in Book of Records has been captive tiger Jaipur, then again when seeing his photo it´s easy to see why. Not something what could ever be seen in wild. Sadly in captivity there have been many other obese animals too. So yes, some other captive lions and tigers might have been there too, I haven´t checked in long time what they tell there. 700 lbs lion if fit, should be huge in every way. I don´t think that there are such lions really. Or if, then maybe once in a lifetime, when looking at average/normal lions. But I´ve never seen any reliable source for such lion in wild. Some captive and obese lions have been told to be 700-800 lbs, which I don´t find impossible, they are big animals and it´s possible to overfeed them as many examples show. (09-24-2019, 08:41 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:Hello, GuateGojira. I have saved the data published by africanat before, hope it will be helpful to you.(01-17-2018, 10:41 PM)TheLioness Wrote: TheAfricatfoundation "lioness spots - we weighed her (158 kg)" This is the lion measurement data on the africanat website.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author This is the information recorded in the pdf file by Africanat. As we can see, the data is very confusing.  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
(10-19-2020, 08:42 PM)Khan85 Wrote: Also, I recently read about these two "mamuding lions" who killed 244 cattle in one year and weighed 800lbs and 700lbs I saw that some "fans" in the web are using these two records as a "reliable" figure that proves that lions were giants in modern days. Sorry to say this but that is totally ridiculous!!! We had a huge sample of 273 weights of wild adult male lions from Africa and Asia that ranges from 130 to 260 kg (a continuous list with a difference between weights of no more than 5-10 kg), then it jumps to two record specimens of 272 kg, one in Kenya and other in South Africa, and after that it jumps again 41 kg from nowhere up to a single figure of 313 kg for the record lion accepted by Guinness, and that is all. After that there are not heavier wild lions on record, just some captive ones and very few by the way. Now, as Shadow said, those records from Guinness are disputable by very good reasons. The figure of 313 kg was first mentioned in some old record book from 1930-1940 but do not presented any evidence (any picture, measurement or any extra data) appart from the report of the hunter Lennox Anderson and that "several people" checked the figure, and after that is mentioned again as a "record" by Gerald Wood in the book "Animal Facts and Feats - one of the Guinness family of book" from 1972 and latter copy-pasted by the next editions. It was until the last edition of 1981 that he actually present the picture of the animal and the surprise is that the stuffed specimen was no bigger than an average size lion that will be very lucky if it weighed 181 kg, maybe less! So, what happen with the "giant" described and perpetuated by the old books? It was just a hearsay? Lennox just exagerated? We dont know for sure, but also we need to add to the fact that the support prase that says that "several people check it" do not add any reliability to the record, in fact that several people could be just watching and agreeing with the figure produced by the railway scale used to weigh this lion. In any part says that "officials" checked this figure like some "fans" says, it only mention "people", they could be just the friends of Lennox, also we do not know how reliable was that scale. So taking in count all these facts and the issue that no measurement or skull length was preserved from this lion, we need to conclude that there is no reliable evidence to state that the figure of 313 kg was real or accurate and should be discarted as alll the figures of Amur tigers from 1930 - 1950 that were also discarted by Dr Slaght and his team in 2005. The same can by said for the tiger of 389 kg of David Hasinger. In this case we have much more evidence, we have several pictures, measurements, reports from officials in India and even from the Smithsonian museum, so we could say that the figure is realiable, correct? Well actually no, and the problem is that if we use the logic and the information available, the morphological data of this tiger do not match. For example, we have a sample of 167 adult male tigers from India, Nepal and Bangladesh, this males range from 97 to 272 kg (the last weight came from two males captured by Scientists in Chitwan NP, Nepal). Latter we have a list of 6 exceptional specimens that range from 276 to 320 kg, with a difference of no more than 10 kg between each other, so we can have a reliable explanation about its huge weights (probably they were baited at the moment of the hunt or they were cattle killers and consequently very bulky). After this there is no other weight from Bengal tigers and there is a jump of 69 kg from nowhere up to the 389 kg record of Hasinger. This simple do not make any sence, unless that this tiger was a freak giant, but the other information do not support these. If we see the picture, we can see that while the reported length of 322 cm between pegs seems plausible, the animal do not look like a freak giant, in fact we can estimate a weight between 200 - 260 kg (depending of the picture that we see, as there are two and in different position). Also when we see the report of the skull size it says that measured only about 14 inches, which is just the size of an average sized skull based in Mazak (2013). So, based in this information we can see that while this tiger DO existed, we do not know how reliable was that weight or if the scale at the sugar plantation that they used was accurate or not. So, this is what we know about the record specimens from Guinness and the same can be done with many of the reports. Please take in count that after the publication of the records by Gerald Wood, the next editors of Guinness just copy pasted his reports and in some cases they even exagerated some of them. Example of this is that the biggest anaconda that Wood believed it was reliable was estimated to weight about 400 lb, but now the Guinness books quoted that actually "weighed" 500 lb! First that is not the figure quoted by Wood and second that animal was not weighed but just estimated and taking in count that the figure came from a second hand source, is possible that the entire report was incorrect or just exagerations. Now, after this looooooong explanation about why these two record lion and tiger, that we had fair information about them, fail to qualify as reliable records, now we can see why these two lions of apparently 700 and 800 lb are so unreliable. There is no other source in the entire lion litterature that actually knew or reported or even acepted these two figures, there is no back up for these weighs, no measurements, not pictures, no skulls, just nothing! Even worst, the round and perfectly created numbers make these figures even more suspicios as normally the figures recorded are not exact at the next pound. If we use the method to check reliability on the weights used by Dr Slagth and his team when they studied the old records of Amur tigers, these two lions of 700 and 800 lb will be clasified as TOTALLY UNRELIABLE, because it is not a first hand source, there is no picture or any measurements and it is not mentioned in any old or modern lion litterature, besides is out of any normal range of size for modern lions. So, any person with a gram of brain will know that these two lion figures are fake, unreliable and just gross exagerations. Finally, we need to understand that these figures of 700 and 800 lb represent 318 and 363 kg respectively, and if we know a little about Paleontology, we can see that these figures, specially the last one, belongs only to the biggest specimens of Felidae in the prehistory, the giant cave "lions" Panthera spelaea, Panthera atrox the giant Pleistocene tiger Panthera tigris soloensis, and also the biggest saber tooth cats Amphimachairodus kabir and the magnificent Smilodon populator. There is no way that a modern tiger or lion can surpass the 320 kg figure naturally in the wild, unless that is a real "freak giant" or if it had a good amount of food and/or fat in the belly. So, it is important to use the logic on this, and not just use any random figure that we found in the web, like this little group of "fanatics" of the lion-vs-tiger stupid debate. Hope this helps the clarify this issue ones for all. Greetings. (11-04-2020, 01:11 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:(10-19-2020, 08:42 PM)Khan85 Wrote: Also, I recently read about these two "mamuding lions" who killed 244 cattle in one year and weighed 800lbs and 700lbs Thanks for clearing it, Guate! 
I'll try to contact the person.
Here is the link where he uploaded - https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugz_yMfcWAwfBJaMn9R4AaABCQ |
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