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Modern Weights and Measurements of Wild Lions

United States Pckts Offline
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(02-26-2022, 08:07 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: The "interpretation" i got was sadly from Bertram (The protocol used by smuts and via pers com) and i used the calculation. Therefore i just said that the *note* should be taken intead of just quoting them(this goes torwards especially pcts). Also if you have a problem with your interpretation... it makes no sense that you claimed the 200 kg males to be 190 kg empty. And pcts its no wonder that big cats of that weight will carry more fat than a average but fact is that it was in the moderate stage (no matter which degree now). I think if many of you would just read carefully what i wrote.... half of the discussion would not exist.

@GuateGojira I said i understand you before. But your comparison is out of proportions and the same would look silly using the 193 cm lioness (the asiatic one would be 195-198cm between pegs. Even more so comapring it to a 220cm lioness over curves. My question to you would be when you are really strict in low weights then i am interested why you include the 132 kg and 138 kg males from both smither and wilson. And the one Botswana male from Wilson, which is measurement wise a clear cut subadult.

Also can you show me where its mentioned that these lions were the ones measured by Campbell or the ones published by Roberts? The lions height from roberts sample were measured over curves

About your claims from Brander your correlations makes no sense (obviously because of the measurements you didnt reply to such as length, height and girths from the data) and its a really heavy statement by you with no clear evidence. But honestly it wont make it better to speculate... when those of the bettter areas didnt average noticably more (just by 10-15 kg, unadjusted). Also the smallest male was of 167 kg which again confirms that your opinion isnt correct. The samples from Behaar came from the areas where tigers were known to be big and even so many tigers of smaller dimensional size wasnt included makes the point more clear that it was indeed based on adult males by that logic excluding the gorged ones (or evem better you could adjust them by 20-30 kg and include them as "empty stomach" males). Can you present those 9 gorged specimen? If you tend to ignore those measurements then you should contact those scientists like Jhala. 

@"Khan85" First of all the sample was on 4 individuals per study(because you combined it with the email) and once you look at it again it becomes clear that lions do have really the thicker bone than tigers(sample for both is very high), which may be the reason for the weight difference. But the muscle attachements will mainly depend on individuals . 

The studies where PC worked as the author or Co-Worker are showing the advanatage to the lion(Ml, AP, girth) combined with the other studies. Overall the ML Diameter for lion and tigers is of 8.59%(leo) and 8.64%(tigris) and the AP Diameter 11.9%(Leo), 10.7%(Tigris) with good sample sizes showing there is basically not a difference. Those in AP CC, ML CC were significant but the sample wasnt large

Quote:The "interpretation" i got was sadly from Bertram (The protocol used by smuts and via pers com) and i used the calculation. Therefore i just said that the *note* should be taken intead of just quoting them(this goes torwards especially pcts). Also if you have a problem with your interpretation... it makes no sense that you claimed the 200 kg males to be 190 kg empty. And pcts its no wonder that big cats of that weight will carry more fat than a average but fact is that it was in the moderate stage (no matter which degree now). I think if many of you would just read carefully what i wrote.... half of the discussion would not exist.
You're all over the board and it's hard to keep track of what your saying, it doesn't really have anything to do with reading carefully.
You have a habit of making claims then not acknowledging those claims to be wrong, instead you just switch course quickly and make a new claim which takes the debate into another direction. 

For instance, your claim about Lions being empty as "not normal"
Quote:Yeah but sadly "empty stomach" isnt normal in weight datas.

But you're quickly shown that Smuts specifically mentions that over half of his culled Lions were empty so the idea of baselessly adding 10kg's to their verified weights is wrong.
Quote:These arent interpretations really. Quoting this weight it should be always remembered that the lions were ADJUSTED for stomach content which puts them therefore at around 197 kg unadjusted (looking at the calculations and the protocol by bertram). Therefore i am not a fan of empty stomach weights especially in such datas as they tend to underestimate the weight automatically.

Now in regards to this
Quote:@Khan85 First of all the sample was on 4 individuals per study(because you combined it with the email) and once you look at it again it becomes clear that lions do have really the thicker bone than tigers(sample for both is very high), which may be the reason for the weight difference. But the muscle attachements will mainly depend on individuals . 
What exactly are you looking at that it becomes clear?
Because the actual studies posted by Khan certainly don't show that at all.
Also I'm curious how the muscle attachments depend on the individual yet the other measurements do not? 

Quote:The studies where PC worked as the author or Co-Worker are showing the advanatage to the lion(Ml, AP, girth) combined with the other studies. Overall the ML Diameter for lion and tigers is of 8.59%(leo) and 8.64%(tigris) and the AP Diameter 11.9%(Leo), 10.7%(Tigris) with good sample sizes showing there is basically not a difference. Those in AP CC, ML CC were significant but the sample wasnt large

Can we see these actual studies, I'd also like to see where Dr. Christiansen told @khan85 that "tigers had more robust bones (although difference was very slight) but in muscle attachments, the difference was very significant"
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Italy AndresVida Offline
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(02-28-2022, 11:58 PM)Pckts Wrote: You have a habit of making claims then not acknowledging those claims to be wrong, instead you just switch course quickly and make a new claim which takes the debate into another direction. 

For instance, your claim about Lions being empty as "not normal"
Perhaps he was referring to the fact that in many samples of weights recorded for lions in most cases the contents of the stomach have an influence on the value of the final value and perhaps for this reason he defined it as "normal" weight, as in many cases stomach content plays a role. 

Obviously this is just what I think to try to make some sense of what SpinoRex claimed here. 
It is obvious that his claim that "a weight derived by stomach content should be considered as normal" is completely wrong and way off in every sense.

The normal weight of an animal is the weight given solely and exclusively by the body mass of the animal between bones, muscles, organs and skin without any external body (such as food) affecting the value.

When we weigh a lion, we have to know the mass of THE LION. Not of the "lion + food". Hopefully he gets it..
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United States Pckts Offline
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(03-01-2022, 07:19 PM)SpinoRex Wrote:
(03-01-2022, 05:23 AM)LoveAnimals Wrote:
(02-28-2022, 11:58 PM)Pckts Wrote: You have a habit of making claims then not acknowledging those claims to be wrong, instead you just switch course quickly and make a new claim which takes the debate into another direction. 

For instance, your claim about Lions being empty as "not normal"
Perhaps he was referring to the fact that in many samples of weights recorded for lions in most cases the contents of the stomach have an influence on the value of the final value and perhaps for this reason he defined it as "normal" weight, as in many cases stomach content plays a role. 

Obviously this is just what I think to try to make some sense of what SpinoRex claimed here. 
It is obvious that his claim that "a weight derived by stomach content should be considered as normal" is completely wrong and way off in every sense.

The normal weight of an animal is the weight given solely and exclusively by the body mass of the animal between bones, muscles, organs and skin without any external body (such as food) affecting the value.

When we weigh a lion, we have to know the mass of THE LION. Not of the "lion + food". Hopefully he gets it..

Didnt i say i consider "non empty weights" as normal weights because most datas include stomach content? Yes they should be adjusted but they arent generally and therefore in the data base "empty" stomach weights are considered not normal. Out of many samples of no matter what number only 2 datas adjusted their lions (bertram and Smuts).


If you have a data base of 300 samples with stomach content and a sample of 40 without stomach content... what is the "normal" weight for lion according to the data base? No matter what is the right or wrong way.

I never said including stomach content is right but it is the common weight value that is used.

I hope now you understood me

Smuts culled 247 Lions, 53% were empty. It’s the exact opposite, empty was more common. This also isn’t an estimation based off observation or bait eaten, this is confirmed from dissected cats.
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Italy AndresVida Offline
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(03-01-2022, 07:19 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: If you have a data base of 300 samples with stomach content and a sample of 40 without stomach content... what is the "normal" weight for lion according to the data base?
The 40 lions in that sample can be considered to be of a normal weight, as it's just their own weight and there is no food interphering on the final value.
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United States Pckts Offline
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( This post was last modified: 03-02-2022, 03:58 AM by Pckts )

(03-02-2022, 02:54 AM)SpinoRex Wrote:
(03-01-2022, 08:48 PM)Pckts Wrote:
(03-01-2022, 07:19 PM)SpinoRex Wrote:
(03-01-2022, 05:23 AM)LoveAnimals Wrote:
(02-28-2022, 11:58 PM)Pckts Wrote: You have a habit of making claims then not acknowledging those claims to be wrong, instead you just switch course quickly and make a new claim which takes the debate into another direction. 

For instance, your claim about Lions being empty as "not normal"
Perhaps he was referring to the fact that in many samples of weights recorded for lions in most cases the contents of the stomach have an influence on the value of the final value and perhaps for this reason he defined it as "normal" weight, as in many cases stomach content plays a role. 

Obviously this is just what I think to try to make some sense of what SpinoRex claimed here. 
It is obvious that his claim that "a weight derived by stomach content should be considered as normal" is completely wrong and way off in every sense.

The normal weight of an animal is the weight given solely and exclusively by the body mass of the animal between bones, muscles, organs and skin without any external body (such as food) affecting the value.

When we weigh a lion, we have to know the mass of THE LION. Not of the "lion + food". Hopefully he gets it..

Didnt i say i consider "non empty weights" as normal weights because most datas include stomach content? Yes they should be adjusted but they arent generally and therefore in the data base "empty" stomach weights are considered not normal. Out of many samples of no matter what number only 2 datas adjusted their lions (bertram and Smuts).


If you have a data base of 300 samples with stomach content and a sample of 40 without stomach content... what is the "normal" weight for lion according to the data base? No matter what is the right or wrong way.

I never said including stomach content is right but it is the common weight value that is used.

I hope now you understood me

Smuts culled 247 Lions, 53% were empty. It’s the exact opposite, empty was more common. This also isn’t an estimation based off observation or bait eaten, this is confirmed from dissected cats.

Where do you get the number of 53%? Im just talking about the adult males collared by smuts in Kruger. This would then confirm that most lions in datas are on a empty stomach unless it was a "coincidence". Though i could ask bertram about his lions he weighed in Serengeti
You're simply talking about Males captured and weighed, but that number is actually significantly higher, since he captured 488 and 409 were marked in 158 capture attempts (pg 157) and this was just for the Lion Census. Not including the culling or captures in other reserves, in reality, he has killed/captured probably close to 1000 cats based off his book. *These were along the Timbavati River, Kruger and Northwards and eastwards to the Olifants rivers* 
Generally speaking he states for every 2 females captured or in a pride, there would be or he would capture one male, this not including youngsters and sub adults, which were generally evenly distributed. The largest pride he captured were twenty one females with 2 males, this was roughly 1 male to 5 females.


In regards to stomach content:
"He examined the stomach of 257 culled Lions between December 1974 and July 1978. Of the 257  lions stomachs examined, 47% (my mistake, mixed up the totals) were empty. The high incidence of empty lion stomachs indicated that they were not feeding every day." Page 243 This shows just about half of the 257 lions killed and stomach contents measured to be empty. Obviously which such a huge sample size, the idea of empty being uncommon or not isn't supported. They're equally abundant. These findings were also supported by Bruce Bryden. (page 244)
If the lion was weighed and his stomach couldn't be examined, Smuts would deduct amount of bait the lion ingested. The largest amount he estimated to be eaten in one sitting was 30kg's of Impala meat, skin and bones. Lion cubs eat more than the adults relative to size. In one instance the stomach contents of a ten-month old cub represented 25% of it's total body weight.

Prey density difference between S. Africa and the Serengeti-
I want to show you the true difference in prey availability between Kruger and the Serengeti. 
"The 708 lions in an area of 5,560 sq kilometres gave a density of almost thirteen lions per hundred sq. kilometres. Another staggering finding was the ration of the number of lions to their prey was 1 Lion to 110 prey animals. In the Serengeti, by contrast, the figure is about 1 lion to 1,000 prey animals." (page 158)

Smuts captured Lions all over Africa, but obviously his majority are in S.Africa. I've posted some of the scans here if you want to read them https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-modern-...on+weights
His data base is 2nd to none and if you include Stevenson Hamilton, their total data base is gigantic and never have they come close to weighing/measuring a 270kg male or even 250kg for that matter, yet somehow miraculously in Timbavati now a days it seems to be common occurrence according to 2nd hand sources. I'm sorry, but I'll always be skeptical of those claims.
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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(03-02-2022, 03:42 AM)Pckts Wrote: His data base is 2nd to none and if you include Stevenson Hamilton, their total data base is gigantic and never have they come close to weighing/measuring a 270kg male or even 250kg for that matter, yet somehow miraculously in Timbavati now a days it seems to be common occurrence according to 2nd hand sources. I'm sorry, but I'll always be skeptical of those claims.

You have a point here. What you say about the sample of Smuts and Stevenson-Hamilton is interesting as the old hunting records shows some males of up to 553 lb (251 kg) but this evidence suggest that those huge males were probably gorged or included food at some point, maybe between 20 - 30 kg. That will make sence as the "empty" belly could be 221 - 231 kg, in the line of the heaviest male of Smuts, from such a huge sample, maybe more than 1000 specimens in total in the entire area. Is just an especulation.

Interesting, the five males that Pitman mentioned from the magazine "The Field" are included in the sample of the lions provided by Campbell to Mr Roberts, which to be fair, are second hand source as Roberts and Pitman were not present when those animals were measured and weighed. So those males should be taken as "Regular reliable" as the Russians said by Slagth et al (2005). I would love to see the Table 36 from Roberts (1951), that will provide more information on size, skulls and many other details. If someone in the US is near to a library with that book, you should take a picture of it, it will be awesome!

Now something completelly unrelated. I was also checking this image, that we normally use in the "modern" records section:

*This image is copyright of its original author


Well, I told to SpinoRex to found the original source of the data because he says that the smaller lions were subadults, but he did not presented evidence of this claim. So I dig more and I fount the original sources (the one from "in litt." obviously not), not without a couple of surprices.

First, Smithers of 1971:

*This image is copyright of its original author


As we can see, there is no remark that those male lions were subadult or young and Smithers was enfatic in the details as we can see in other tables, like this one from leopards.

*This image is copyright of its original author


So it seems that lions in that area are smaller than those from Southern areas as I suspected, they are not subadults. And before the "fans" start claiming that the giant record weights are "reliable", check that Smithers clearly says that those figures need to be verified and "await" confirmation, plus the fact that he did not witness those hunts and did not saw those animals, not even Mr Best, so those are from a third party source and based in the huge figures reported, they are definitelly unreliable (for some reason they were not published, probably because Mr Best also believed that were not accurate, specially the female one).

Now, Smithers & Wilson (1979):

*This image is copyright of its original author


This is the original image of the page 73 where are the records of the lions. The page 72 is for leopards and the 74 is already from small cats. As we can see, those lions were not captured for scientific purposes, but came from hunting records via a second person (talking about the big sample of 18 specimens). So we are seeing here a tendency that these "reliable" records that are often used because they came from scientific books (well actually they are just natural guides per se) are from second and third persons, and that contradicts the discriminate process stablished by Slagth et al (2005) about the reliability on records. Sadly, if these figures were from tigers, the "fans" on the other forum will jump claiming that are unreliable and that should be excluded, but as these figures came from lions they swallows it easily, but well........ the hypocresy.

Now, what is interesting is that the TL (total length) figures are not the ones quoted in the image that all of us use, in fact those lengths of 87 - 95 m seems more like tail lenghts and those should be cm, not m (please don't insist SpinoRex, there are no lions of 9 meters.... just a joke Joking ), that is my guess. In the limited preview I was not able to see if the correct total lengths are available in other part of the body of the document, like an "errata" (erratum or corrections) or like an appendix, so for the moment I can only guess that are in some part of the book.

As we can see, those "first hand scientific" records are not that, they are just second (or third) hand hunting records provided by other persons to the authors, like Roberts and Smithers (Pitman do not count as his book never intented to be a scientific source but just a book that include records). Interesting, don't you think?

But that is the problem with the records of lions, there is not a clear line where you can say that are "scientific" or "hunting", as they are mixed. With tigers, on the other hand, is pretty simple, but with jaguars and specially with leopards, the line is diffuse too.
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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(03-02-2022, 04:38 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: 1) How are the lions of Timbavati 2nd hand sources if they were confirmed by the Reserve HQ and the Ecologist? Note these arent common as said by the LPD and they were the forefathers of the Birmingham Pride. This doesnt sound "common" to me.

2) Note that a male of more or less average dimensions (he may be measured even over curves, which is generally used) in Etosha weighed 260 kg just in a sample of 16. Or a young adult of 244 kg in Etosha. And various lions were heavier recorded in scientific literature (Kocks lion, Sm009, Homob males and so on). Note that Smuts lion was empty and he would be 245-255 kg on an full stomach like ximpoko

I know that the question is for Pckts, but I will like to provide information and an extra point of view that will help him to answer to you.

1) Those weights from Timbavati, why they don't publish them? I mean, they can create a post in they webpage, a bulletin and send the information like a short article to a magazine, so they can be checked by pers and accepted. Why we need to follow only emails? Why they deleted the original post in they webpage, in first place?

2) The biggest lion from Etosha, as far we know, was measured in straight line and was a little over the average, its weight included at least 20 kg of meat (240 kg empty). The young lion of Hobatere (not Etosha per se) was baited too (probably about 224 kg empty) and all the pictures of those lions show huge bellies, and that area is famous for cattle killers (check the reports and see the pictures, if you don't belive me).

The lion of Kock was cattle-killer and an outlier, the lion Sm009 a.k.a. Scar also included some stomach content, in fact no lion from MacFarlane was adjusted at all. It will be interesting to see the information of the Homob males, are they actually weighed or just estimated like many, many other lions in this topic that at the end were refuted?
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United States Pckts Offline
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(03-02-2022, 04:38 AM)SpinoRex Wrote: @Pckts beside your information that i appreciate remember he weighed overall just 41 adult males in Kruger NP. And even then your assumption isnt right. I have few questions for you. 


1) How are the lions of Timbavati 2nd hand sources if they were confirmed by the Reserve HQ and the Ecologist? Note these arent common as said by the LPD and they were the forefathers of the Birmingham Pride. This doesnt sound "common" to me.

2) Note that a male of more or less average dimensions (he may be measured even over curves, which is generally used) in Etosha weighed 260 kg just in a sample of 16. Or a young adult of 244 kg in Etosha. And various lions were heavier recorded in scientific literature (Kocks lion, Sm009, Homob males and so on). Note that Smuts lion was empty and he would be 245-255 kg on an full stomach like ximpoko

He also weighed 3 males from Kalahari "we proceeded to examine their teeth and to measure and weigh each animal. The largest male weighed 192kg" page 259


1) We have already gone over why I consider them 2nd hand sources "post #293"

2)The Etosha male was gorged said to subtract at least 20kg. 
And didn't the entire sample size produce an average of 190kg? This including the 260kg Male as well or not? 
Kochs Lion is the heaviest verifiable Lion today, I have no qualms with his weight although being a significant cattle killer probably exaggerated his weight a bit. 
Adding 20-30kg Smuts Lion is pointless, that's not his weight. He was 225kg empty, anything else is speculation. 
SM009 was 222kg then 246kg so most likely has to do with stomach content.

I'm not saying that Lions can't reach weights above 225kgs but I prefer to use verifiable data and measurements that come from real sources than private reserves that generally use baiting tactics keep their Lions there. There are no outside influences when talking about Smuts and Stevenson and their data base is gigantic. Nothing they mention compares to these alleged weights out of a single place in S. Africa, that's what I'm saying.
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United States Pckts Offline
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(03-02-2022, 05:01 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(03-02-2022, 03:42 AM)Pckts Wrote: His data base is 2nd to none and if you include Stevenson Hamilton, their total data base is gigantic and never have they come close to weighing/measuring a 270kg male or even 250kg for that matter, yet somehow miraculously in Timbavati now a days it seems to be common occurrence according to 2nd hand sources. I'm sorry, but I'll always be skeptical of those claims.

You have a point here. What you say about the sample of Smuts and Stevenson-Hamilton is interesting as the old hunting records shows some males of up to 553 lb (251 kg) but this evidence suggest that those huge males were probably gorged or included food at some point, maybe between 20 - 30 kg. That will make sence as the "empty" belly could be 221 - 231 kg, in the line of the heaviest male of Smuts, from such a huge sample, maybe more than 1000 specimens in total in the entire area. Is just an especulation.

Interesting, the five males that Pitman mentioned from the magazine "The Field" are included in the sample of the lions provided by Campbell to Mr Roberts, which to be fair, are second hand source as Roberts and Pitman were  not present when those animals were measured and weighed. So those males should be taken as "Regular reliable" as the Russians said by Slagth et al (2005). I would love to see the Table 36 from Roberts (1951), that will provide more information on size, skulls and many other details. If someone in the US is near to a library with that book, you should take a picture of it, it will be awesome!

Now something completelly unrelated. I was also checking this image, that we normally use in the "modern" records section:

*This image is copyright of its original author


Well, I told to SpinoRex to found the original source of the data because he says that the smaller lions were subadults, but he did not presented evidence of this claim. So I dig more and I fount the original sources (the one from "in litt." obviously not), not without a couple of surprices.

First, Smithers of 1971:

*This image is copyright of its original author


As we can see, there is no remark that those male lions were subadult or young and Smithers was enfatic in the details as we can see in other tables, like this one from leopards.

*This image is copyright of its original author


So it seems that lions in that area are smaller than those from Southern areas as I suspected, they are not subadults. And before the "fans" start claiming that the giant record weights are "reliable", check that Smithers clearly says that those figures need to be verified and "await" confirmation, plus the fact that he did not witness those hunts and did not saw those animals, not even Mr Best, so those are from a third party source and based in the huge figures reported, they are definitelly unreliable (for some reason they were not published, probably because Mr Best also believed that were not accurate, specially the female one).

Now, Smithers & Wilson (1979):

*This image is copyright of its original author


This is the original image of the page 73 where are the records of the lions. The page 72 is for leopards and the 74 is already from small cats. As we can see, those lions were not captured for scientific purposes, but came from hunting records via a second person (talking about the big sample of 18 specimens). So we are seeing here a tendency that these "reliable" records that are often used because they came from scientific books (well actually they are just natural guides per se) are from second and third persons, and that contradicts the discriminate process stablished by Slagth et al (2005) about the reliability on records. Sadly, if these figures were from tigers, the "fans" on the other forum will jump claiming that are unreliable and that should be excluded, but as these figures came from lions they swallows it easily, but well........ the hypocresy.

Now, what is interesting is that the TL (total length) figures are not the ones quoted in the image that all of us use, in fact those lengths of 87 - 95 m seems more like tail lenghts and those should be cm, not m (please don't insist SpinoRex, there are no lions of 9 meters.... just a joke Joking ), that is my guess. In the limited preview I was not able to see if the correct total lengths are available in other part of the body of the document, like an "errata" (erratum or corrections) or like an appendix, so for the moment I can only guess that are in some part of the book.

As we can see, those "first hand scientific" records are not that, they are just second (or third) hand hunting records provided by other persons to the authors, like Roberts and Smithers (Pitman do not count as his book never intented to be a scientific source but just a book that include records). Interesting, don't you think?

But that is the problem with the records of lions, there is not a clear line where you can say that are "scientific" or "hunting", as they are mixed. With tigers, on the other hand, is pretty simple, but with jaguars and specially with leopards, the line is diffuse too.

Quote:You have a point here. What you say about the sample of Smuts and Stevenson-Hamilton is interesting as the old hunting records shows some males of up to 553 lb (251 kg) but this evidence suggest that those huge males were probably gorged or included food at some point, maybe between 20 - 30 kg. That will make sence as the "empty" belly could be 221 - 231 kg, in the line of the heaviest male of Smuts, from such a huge sample, maybe more than 1000 specimens in total in the entire area. Is just an especulation.
In the central district Smuts captured more than 1,200 Lions. (page 112)
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(02-28-2022, 11:58 PM)Pckts Wrote:
(02-26-2022, 08:07 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: The "interpretation" i got was sadly from Bertram (The protocol used by smuts and via pers com) and i used the calculation. Therefore i just said that the *note* should be taken intead of just quoting them(this goes torwards especially pcts). Also if you have a problem with your interpretation... it makes no sense that you claimed the 200 kg males to be 190 kg empty. And pcts its no wonder that big cats of that weight will carry more fat than a average but fact is that it was in the moderate stage (no matter which degree now). I think if many of you would just read carefully what i wrote.... half of the discussion would not exist.

@GuateGojira I said i understand you before. But your comparison is out of proportions and the same would look silly using the 193 cm lioness (the asiatic one would be 195-198cm between pegs. Even more so comapring it to a 220cm lioness over curves. My question to you would be when you are really strict in low weights then i am interested why you include the 132 kg and 138 kg males from both smither and wilson. And the one Botswana male from Wilson, which is measurement wise a clear cut subadult.

Also can you show me where its mentioned that these lions were the ones measured by Campbell or the ones published by Roberts? The lions height from roberts sample were measured over curves

About your claims from Brander your correlations makes no sense (obviously because of the measurements you didnt reply to such as length, height and girths from the data) and its a really heavy statement by you with no clear evidence. But honestly it wont make it better to speculate... when those of the bettter areas didnt average noticably more (just by 10-15 kg, unadjusted). Also the smallest male was of 167 kg which again confirms that your opinion isnt correct. The samples from Behaar came from the areas where tigers were known to be big and even so many tigers of smaller dimensional size wasnt included makes the point more clear that it was indeed based on adult males by that logic excluding the gorged ones (or evem better you could adjust them by 20-30 kg and include them as "empty stomach" males). Can you present those 9 gorged specimen? If you tend to ignore those measurements then you should contact those scientists like Jhala. 

@"Khan85" First of all the sample was on 4 individuals per study(because you combined it with the email) and once you look at it again it becomes clear that lions do have really the thicker bone than tigers(sample for both is very high), which may be the reason for the weight difference. But the muscle attachements will mainly depend on individuals . 

The studies where PC worked as the author or Co-Worker are showing the advanatage to the lion(Ml, AP, girth) combined with the other studies. Overall the ML Diameter for lion and tigers is of 8.59%(leo) and 8.64%(tigris) and the AP Diameter 11.9%(Leo), 10.7%(Tigris) with good sample sizes showing there is basically not a difference. Those in AP CC, ML CC were significant but the sample wasnt large

Quote:The "interpretation" i got was sadly from Bertram (The protocol used by smuts and via pers com) and i used the calculation. Therefore i just said that the *note* should be taken intead of just quoting them(this goes torwards especially pcts). Also if you have a problem with your interpretation... it makes no sense that you claimed the 200 kg males to be 190 kg empty. And pcts its no wonder that big cats of that weight will carry more fat than a average but fact is that it was in the moderate stage (no matter which degree now). I think if many of you would just read carefully what i wrote.... half of the discussion would not exist.
You're all over the board and it's hard to keep track of what your saying, it doesn't really have anything to do with reading carefully.
You have a habit of making claims then not acknowledging those claims to be wrong, instead you just switch course quickly and make a new claim which takes the debate into another direction. 

For instance, your claim about Lions being empty as "not normal"
Quote:Yeah but sadly "empty stomach" isnt normal in weight datas.

But you're quickly shown that Smuts specifically mentions that over half of his culled Lions were empty so the idea of baselessly adding 10kg's to their verified weights is wrong.
Quote:These arent interpretations really. Quoting this weight it should be always remembered that the lions were ADJUSTED for stomach content which puts them therefore at around 197 kg unadjusted (looking at the calculations and the protocol by bertram). Therefore i am not a fan of empty stomach weights especially in such datas as they tend to underestimate the weight automatically.

Now in regards to this
Quote:@Khan85 First of all the sample was on 4 individuals per study(because you combined it with the email) and once you look at it again it becomes clear that lions do have really the thicker bone than tigers(sample for both is very high), which may be the reason for the weight difference. But the muscle attachements will mainly depend on individuals . 
What exactly are you looking at that it becomes clear?
Because the actual studies posted by Khan certainly don't show that at all.
Also I'm curious how the muscle attachments depend on the individual yet the other measurements do not? 

Quote:The studies where PC worked as the author or Co-Worker are showing the advanatage to the lion(Ml, AP, girth) combined with the other studies. Overall the ML Diameter for lion and tigers is of 8.59%(leo) and 8.64%(tigris) and the AP Diameter 11.9%(Leo), 10.7%(Tigris) with good sample sizes showing there is basically not a difference. Those in AP CC, ML CC were significant but the sample wasnt large

Can we see these actual studies, I'd also like to see where Dr. Christiansen told @khan85 that "tigers had more robust bones (although difference was very slight) but in muscle attachments, the difference was very significant"

Upon request, he went through all of his data to give me a proper conclusion.

¨I've taken the time to take a look at my database provided by multiple zoological collections and this is what I found: 

The ranking as per the forelimb bones: 
1. Panthera onca 
2. Panthera Spelaea 
3. Neofelis 
4. Panthera tigris 
5. Panthera leo 

The difference between Onca and the Cave lion was limited, and the former showed slightly more developed muscle attachment. The difference in between Panthera tigris and panthera leo was very little, but the former had muscle attachments that exceeded the latter by a sizeable amount. 

Panthera onca had the widest ribcage followed by panthera spelaea. 

The difference between hindlimb robusticity was barely noticeable between the 5 species. 

Bengal tigers showed slightly bulkier builds than siberian tigers but they did not have more robust bones. 

Best regards 
Per¨

------------------------------------------------------

¨I am not allowed to disclose the exact sample sizes but i can tell you that all of them combined into one would normally result in over 60 specimens.  

Per¨
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Guatemala GuateGojira Offline
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(03-02-2022, 05:53 AM)Khan85 Wrote: Upon request, he went through all of his data to give me a proper conclusion.

¨I've taken the time to take a look at my database provided by multiple zoological collections and this is what I found: 

The ranking as per the forelimb bones: 
1. Panthera onca 
2. Panthera Spelaea 
3. Neofelis 
4. Panthera tigris 
5. Panthera leo 

The difference between Onca and the Cave lion was limited, and the former showed slightly more developed muscle attachment. The difference in between Panthera tigris and panthera leo was very little, but the former had muscle attachments that exceeded the latter by a sizeable amount. 

Panthera onca had the widest ribcage followed by panthera spelaea. 

The difference between hindlimb robusticity was barely noticeable between the 5 species. 

Bengal tigers showed slightly bulkier builds than siberian tigers but they did not have more robust bones. 

Best regards 
Per¨

------------------------------------------------------

¨I am not allowed to disclose the exact sample sizes but i can tell you that all of them combined into one would normally result in over 60 specimens.  

Per¨

I think that jaguars deserve more respect and attention. They are a tank in the cat family.
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Czech Republic Charger01 Offline
Animal admirer & Vegan

(02-26-2022, 08:07 PM)SpinoRex Wrote: The "interpretation" i got was sadly from Bertram (The protocol used by smuts and via pers com) and i used the calculation. Therefore i just said that the *note* should be taken intead of just quoting them(this goes torwards especially pcts). Also if you have a problem with your interpretation... it makes no sense that you claimed the 200 kg males to be 190 kg empty. And pcts its no wonder that big cats of that weight will carry more fat than a average but fact is that it was in the moderate stage (no matter which degree now). I think if many of you would just read carefully what i wrote.... half of the discussion would not exist.

@GuateGojira I said i understand you before. But your comparison is out of proportions and the same would look silly using the 193 cm lioness (the asiatic one would be 195-198cm between pegs. Even more so comapring it to a 220cm lioness over curves. My question to you would be when you are really strict in low weights then i am interested why you include the 132 kg and 138 kg males from both smither and wilson. And the one Botswana male from Wilson, which is measurement wise a clear cut subadult.

Also can you show me where its mentioned that these lions were the ones measured by Campbell or the ones published by Roberts? The lions height from roberts sample were measured over curves

About your claims from Brander your correlations makes no sense (obviously because of the measurements you didnt reply to such as length, height and girths from the data) and its a really heavy statement by you with no clear evidence. But honestly it wont make it better to speculate... when those of the bettter areas didnt average noticably more (just by 10-15 kg, unadjusted). Also the smallest male was of 167 kg which again confirms that your opinion isnt correct. The samples from Behaar came from the areas where tigers were known to be big and even so many tigers of smaller dimensional size wasnt included makes the point more clear that it was indeed based on adult males by that logic excluding the gorged ones (or evem better you could adjust them by 20-30 kg and include them as "empty stomach" males). Can you present those 9 gorged specimen? If you tend to ignore those measurements then you should contact those scientists like Jhala. 

@"Khan85" First of all the sample was on 4 individuals per study(because you combined it with the email) and once you look at it again it becomes clear that lions do have really the thicker bone than tigers(sample for both is very high), which may be the reason for the weight difference. But the muscle attachements will mainly depend on individuals . 

The studies where PC worked as the author or Co-Worker are showing the advanatage to the lion(Ml, AP, girth) combined with the other studies. Overall the ML Diameter for lion and tigers is of 8.59%(leo) and 8.64%(tigris) and the AP Diameter 11.9%(Leo), 10.7%(Tigris) with good sample sizes showing there is basically not a difference. Those in AP CC, ML CC were significant but the sample wasnt large
I dont know how you are reaching that conclusion. You dont just take shaft into account for the whole bone and ignore all other important details. 

Formula for HRI aka *Humeral Robusticity Index* has specifically been calculated as [smallest transverse diameter of humerus diaphysis (aka mediolateral ML diameter) divided by total length of humerus] and not anterioposterior diameter or midshaft circumference of humerus instead of mediolateral diameter. 

Tigers have relatively shorter shaft length for total humerus length which is why the shaft circumference vs shaft-only length is greater in tigers (57.54 % vs 48.04 %) but shaft circumference vs total length of humerus is slightly greater in lions (32.61 % vs 32.13 %). 

That was about the shaft of humerus, then there are proximal and distal extremities of humerus. Tigers exceed lions by a significant margin in both proximal and distal circumference and width. Since proximal and distal ends of humerus are the sites for muscle attachment, it explains why Dr. Christiansen said that tigers have significantly larger muscle attachments than lions. 

If it wasn´t a recurring (or average) observation when comparing lions and tigers, Dr. Christiansen would have never said that. Not to mention, he gave advantage to tigers in bones too, although very slightly and I agree to that. 

I am afraid this thread has turned into Lion vs Tiger...
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SpinoRex Offline
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( This post was last modified: 03-04-2022, 03:09 AM by SpinoRex )

@"Khan85" Your reply is probably outdated ever since i shared you a another study but neverthless i never ignored the other details. The samples for those datas were small and in a other study the distal extremety width was just 6.28 cm for 5 adult indian tigers (most males). Neverthless i said that the difference is insignificant. The lion as i said has the thicker shaft both in total and proportionally. Thus it will allow other muscular advantages in terms of potential at least (all muscles actually). CP probably visually claimed that but as i said we have the studies in terms of robusticity and once you are widening the spectrum the overall conclusion is the opposite. But i dont want to debate it as the difference is insignififcant. For lions i got 32.63% (n=24) and for tigers 30.88% (n=29) at Humerus Circumference. In a sample one tiger had a shaft of 158mm at 315mm humerus length, which is impossible (i looked at all datas and the graphs). I think it had been a respectful discussion. At the points were disagreements happens one have to stay calm and not in a fight. Also your conclusion as i said before is partly wrong (the combination of email and the one datas from your side).

Im still widening the collection i have now. And will upload it soon.... they will be really similar so no suprise.
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SpinoRex Offline
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Chest Girth of Crater Lions


*This image is copyright of its original author
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SpinoRex Offline
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(03-02-2022, 05:01 AM)GuateGojira Wrote:
(03-02-2022, 03:42 AM)Pckts Wrote: His data base is 2nd to none and if you include Stevenson Hamilton, their total data base is gigantic and never have they come close to weighing/measuring a 270kg male or even 250kg for that matter, yet somehow miraculously in Timbavati now a days it seems to be common occurrence according to 2nd hand sources. I'm sorry, but I'll always be skeptical of those claims.

You have a point here. What you say about the sample of Smuts and Stevenson-Hamilton is interesting as the old hunting records shows some males of up to 553 lb (251 kg) but this evidence suggest that those huge males were probably gorged or included food at some point, maybe between 20 - 30 kg. That will make sence as the "empty" belly could be 221 - 231 kg, in the line of the heaviest male of Smuts, from such a huge sample, maybe more than 1000 specimens in total in the entire area. Is just an especulation.

Interesting, the five males that Pitman mentioned from the magazine "The Field" are included in the sample of the lions provided by Campbell to Mr Roberts, which to be fair, are second hand source as Roberts and Pitman were  not present when those animals were measured and weighed. So those males should be taken as "Regular reliable" as the Russians said by Slagth et al (2005). I would love to see the Table 36 from Roberts (1951), that will provide more information on size, skulls and many other details. If someone in the US is near to a library with that book, you should take a picture of it, it will be awesome!

Now something completelly unrelated. I was also checking this image, that we normally use in the "modern" records section:

*This image is copyright of its original author


Well, I told to SpinoRex to found the original source of the data because he says that the smaller lions were subadults, but he did not presented evidence of this claim. So I dig more and I fount the original sources (the one from "in litt." obviously not), not without a couple of surprices.

First, Smithers of 1971:

*This image is copyright of its original author


As we can see, there is no remark that those male lions were subadult or young and Smithers was enfatic in the details as we can see in other tables, like this one from leopards.

*This image is copyright of its original author


So it seems that lions in that area are smaller than those from Southern areas as I suspected, they are not subadults. And before the "fans" start claiming that the giant record weights are "reliable", check that Smithers clearly says that those figures need to be verified and "await" confirmation, plus the fact that he did not witness those hunts and did not saw those animals, not even Mr Best, so those are from a third party source and based in the huge figures reported, they are definitelly unreliable (for some reason they were not published, probably because Mr Best also believed that were not accurate, specially the female one).

Now, Smithers & Wilson (1979):

*This image is copyright of its original author


This is the original image of the page 73 where are the records of the lions. The page 72 is for leopards and the 74 is already from small cats. As we can see, those lions were not captured for scientific purposes, but came from hunting records via a second person (talking about the big sample of 18 specimens). So we are seeing here a tendency that these "reliable" records that are often used because they came from scientific books (well actually they are just natural guides per se) are from second and third persons, and that contradicts the discriminate process stablished by Slagth et al (2005) about the reliability on records. Sadly, if these figures were from tigers, the "fans" on the other forum will jump claiming that are unreliable and that should be excluded, but as these figures came from lions they swallows it easily, but well........ the hypocresy.

Now, what is interesting is that the TL (total length) figures are not the ones quoted in the image that all of us use, in fact those lengths of 87 - 95 m seems more like tail lenghts and those should be cm, not m (please don't insist SpinoRex, there are no lions of 9 meters.... just a joke Joking ), that is my guess. In the limited preview I was not able to see if the correct total lengths are available in other part of the body of the document, like an "errata" (erratum or corrections) or like an appendix, so for the moment I can only guess that are in some part of the book.

As we can see, those "first hand scientific" records are not that, they are just second (or third) hand hunting records provided by other persons to the authors, like Roberts and Smithers (Pitman do not count as his book never intented to be a scientific source but just a book that include records). Interesting, don't you think?

But that is the problem with the records of lions, there is not a clear line where you can say that are "scientific" or "hunting", as they are mixed. With tigers, on the other hand, is pretty simple, but with jaguars and specially with leopards, the line is diffuse too.

Guate everything fine but with all respect a male of 163.9 cm, 172 over curves is defientely not an adult and some males from the other datas from Wilson as well (230 cm over curves). In the other document they wrote m instead of feet. Other than that the book is really accurate. The other botwana male of 183cm over curves isnt a adult most likely. Males of c.170cm are extremely rare/exceptional. Also i was asking for the source if the records mentioned by Pitman are the same as those mentioned by Roberts. Reliability is measured by various points....
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