There is a world somewhere between reality and fiction. Although ignored by many, it is very real and so are those living in it. This forum is about the natural world. Here, wild animals will be heard and respected. The forum offers a glimpse into an unknown world as well as a room with a view on the present and the future. Anyone able to speak on behalf of those living in the emerald forest and the deep blue sea is invited to join.
11-14-2019, 10:39 AM( This post was last modified: 11-14-2019, 12:46 PM by BorneanTiger )
(11-14-2019, 03:58 AM)lionjaguar Wrote:
(11-12-2019, 01:29 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(11-12-2019, 12:05 AM)Sully Wrote: Study finds lions face new threat -poaching and trade in their body parts
Governments and conservationists should adopt holistic and collaborative approaches to preventing and halting the poaching of and trade in the body parts of lions.
This call is contained in a new study which provides evidence of this emerging threat to African lion conservation.
The study, published in October in international journal Biodiversity and Conservation, warns that this growing threat could have a devastating affect on lion populations, mirroring similar affects on wild tiger populations.
The study presented data from field surveys conducted in the Mozambican portion of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, an area between SA, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, between 2011 and 2018.
“We documented 49 lion deaths caused by humans across the study area during the entire study period,” the study said.
The targeted poaching of lions for body parts accounted for 35% of known human-caused mortalities across the landscape, it added.
The researchers also found that retaliatory killing for livestock conflict accounted for 51% of mortalities, but body parts were removed in 48% of conflict cases, suggesting that the demand for body parts was escalating conflict killings.
Teeth and claws were the parts most frequently harvested, with an alarming and dramatic increase from 2014.
“We recorded reports of four cases where lion body parts were confiscated in Mozambique between 2013 and 2017. Of these known cases, canine teeth and claws were confiscated twice, skin, meat and fat once and a full skeleton once.”
The study said two shipments of teeth and claws were confiscated by Mozambican government authorities in 2016 at an international airport. They were destined for Vietnam, with one of the seizures including a combination of lion parts and elephant ivory.
Lead author of the study, Dr Kris Everatt, Panthera’s bushmeat poaching programme manager, said lions already faced a litany threats, from dwindling prey populations to conflict with cattle farmers.
Everatt said the study demonstrated that lions were increasingly confronting the threat of poaching for body parts, often under the guise of human-lion conflict.
He said factors driving this type of poaching remained poorly understood, but that the number of carcasses of captive-bred lions exported from SA had grown exponentially since 2007.
This trade fed a growing market among upwardly mobile Asians for luxury products, such as lion bone wine, with lion bones used in place of tiger bones, as tiger parts become increasingly scarce.
Yes, but not totally new, because I mentioned 5 months before in the tiger thread that because tigers or their parts are getting scarcer or harder to obtain, the "tiger-eaters" have turned their attention to lions, particularly canned South African lions, so I wouldn't feel sorry for them if Trump's trade war or a new global recession (which this Chinese newspaper says China won't be able to save the World from) affects their financial ability to keep the murky trade going: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...59216.html
That is so pathetic.
Quote:so I wouldn't feel sorry for them if Trump's trade war or a new global recession
I have Chinese and Vietnamese friends, and I think small populations of them are involving in those markets. Your statement is the same as Trump is correct to banning Arab Muslim immigrants since they are terrorists because of Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS. You may not like it, but I feel like many nations in the Middle East will be good friends with China. The United States is keep bombing and helping Israel. Do you even know what happened to Kurds after Trump withdrawal of U.S. troops? Trump is building a wall border between the United States and Mexico. I think Trump is no different than China, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
... I was specifically referring to the people responsible for the murky trade, not all Chinese or Vietnamese people. As in, if those who are responsible for this murky trade in wildlife, by paying poachers to kill these animals, get financially affected by Trump's trade war or a recession, then I have no sympathy for them, because they are using their money for the wrong purpose, but of course, if people who are innocent of things like that get affected, then I would sympathise with them.
I remember an earlier post about the "Bach brothers" of Thailand having an economic empire that is based on poaching and the illegal trade in wildlife, and being associated with at least 3 mainstream Lao companies and a Chinese accomplice known as the "Ivory Queen", and that getting them prosecuted was difficult, at partly due to their connection with corrupt officials. As mentioned by the National Geographic, "Wildlife trafficking is believed to be a multibillion-dollar black market of low risk and high rewards. Anti-wildlife trafficking advocates say successful prosecutions rare." It's guys like the Bach brothers that I'm talking about, I would be happy to see people like them have their income or revenue decreased by a recession or other economic woes, so that it's harder for them to pay people to kill wild animals, not good people in those places who don't do such things: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...g-kingpin/, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ng-network, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ng-suspect
(11-01-2019, 08:13 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: Body size of the African lion, southern region:
I made a new series of tables about the size and weight of the lions that live in the southern region. Previously, in my old comparative images, I joined the lions from South Africa and Zimbabwe to form the "South-east clade" and those from Botswana and Namibia for the "South-west clade". However, recent genetic studies shows that the diferentiation is still not quite clear, and there is even some overlap betweeen the southern lions and the east ones. In this case, I decided to divide the records in countries:
South Africa: Specimens form the Kruger NP and the surrounding areas.
Zimbabwe: Specimens from that country and those captured in the Hwange NP.
Botswana: Specimens from that area and those from the Kalahari region.
Namibia: Lions from Etosha, Hobatere and the west coast.
The result is this image with 4 tables, enjoy it:
*This image is copyright of its original author
The results are different because I added new specimens and corrected the locations of others. So if the present figures do not match the ones from the old image, don't get surprised.
Now, this table shows exactly the problem that I explained about the measurements. Those from South Africa are by far the best of all, as all where taken "between pegs" and as we know, some weights are adjusted for stomach content. However the other three populations were measured "along the curves" and in the case of the Hobatere lions, I decided to exclude the specimens that are clearly measured incorrectly. Even then, if we compare the populaton of South Africa and Namibia, we could conclude that the lions from the west are bigger than those from the east, but that is not the case, because the measurements are increased by the method used ("over curves" from ALPRU) and the weights of all the other populations are not adjusted for stomach content, so sadly, a direct comparion is not posible. That is the problem when the figures are not obtained with standarized methods.
Hope this helps to those that like to study the variations of lions, sorry that I did not made a comparative image, but you must know that the important thing is the DATA, an image can be made by anyone, but to compile reliable information, that is the real art. By the way, I did not found any new specimens from the East of Africa, so this data remain the same:
*This image is copyright of its original author
Greetings.
I'm mostly a lurker, but I must say that whenever you post it is a true joy to me haha. Much respect man.
Anyway, it appears like lions of southern Africa have an approximate average body mass of 192kg or approximately 425lbs, in juxtaposition to the cats most usually compared to them, other lion populations as well as tigers: East African lions weigh 400-410lbs on average or 180-185kg? This would mean that Southern African lions are approximately (if we take these as, say, 181kg) 10kg or 22lbs heavier which a difference of 6%, similar to Begal tigers which if I remember correctly you calculated to average approximately 205kg, a 6% difference. The northern populations of lions all seem to be smaller than the above larger cats - 170-175kg, which is >400lbs, potentially as low as 160kg though I believe that low number may be just due to scarcity of prey. I think this gives us a good understanding of where it's all at, yes?
Might you know where these lion populations stand in terms of girth or robusticity/build? I wanted to ask you this on the tiger thread as well but I figured I'd dig through that one to see if there are any, though if you have an average memorized it'd be very much appreciated. Also are the Okavango lions measured? Similarly the Ngorongoro beasts? The Ngorongoro lions seem to be more of an outlier, but the Okavango would raise the Botswanan average, no? Thanks!
11-16-2019, 02:44 AM( This post was last modified: 11-16-2019, 02:47 AM by lionjaguar )
(11-14-2019, 10:39 AM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(11-14-2019, 03:58 AM)lionjaguar Wrote:
(11-12-2019, 01:29 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(11-12-2019, 12:05 AM)Sully Wrote: Study finds lions face new threat -poaching and trade in their body parts
Governments and conservationists should adopt holistic and collaborative approaches to preventing and halting the poaching of and trade in the body parts of lions.
This call is contained in a new study which provides evidence of this emerging threat to African lion conservation.
The study, published in October in international journal Biodiversity and Conservation, warns that this growing threat could have a devastating affect on lion populations, mirroring similar affects on wild tiger populations.
The study presented data from field surveys conducted in the Mozambican portion of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, an area between SA, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, between 2011 and 2018.
“We documented 49 lion deaths caused by humans across the study area during the entire study period,” the study said.
The targeted poaching of lions for body parts accounted for 35% of known human-caused mortalities across the landscape, it added.
The researchers also found that retaliatory killing for livestock conflict accounted for 51% of mortalities, but body parts were removed in 48% of conflict cases, suggesting that the demand for body parts was escalating conflict killings.
Teeth and claws were the parts most frequently harvested, with an alarming and dramatic increase from 2014.
“We recorded reports of four cases where lion body parts were confiscated in Mozambique between 2013 and 2017. Of these known cases, canine teeth and claws were confiscated twice, skin, meat and fat once and a full skeleton once.”
The study said two shipments of teeth and claws were confiscated by Mozambican government authorities in 2016 at an international airport. They were destined for Vietnam, with one of the seizures including a combination of lion parts and elephant ivory.
Lead author of the study, Dr Kris Everatt, Panthera’s bushmeat poaching programme manager, said lions already faced a litany threats, from dwindling prey populations to conflict with cattle farmers.
Everatt said the study demonstrated that lions were increasingly confronting the threat of poaching for body parts, often under the guise of human-lion conflict.
He said factors driving this type of poaching remained poorly understood, but that the number of carcasses of captive-bred lions exported from SA had grown exponentially since 2007.
This trade fed a growing market among upwardly mobile Asians for luxury products, such as lion bone wine, with lion bones used in place of tiger bones, as tiger parts become increasingly scarce.
Yes, but not totally new, because I mentioned 5 months before in the tiger thread that because tigers or their parts are getting scarcer or harder to obtain, the "tiger-eaters" have turned their attention to lions, particularly canned South African lions, so I wouldn't feel sorry for them if Trump's trade war or a new global recession (which this Chinese newspaper says China won't be able to save the World from) affects their financial ability to keep the murky trade going: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...59216.html
That is so pathetic.
Quote:so I wouldn't feel sorry for them if Trump's trade war or a new global recession
I have Chinese and Vietnamese friends, and I think small populations of them are involving in those markets. Your statement is the same as Trump is correct to banning Arab Muslim immigrants since they are terrorists because of Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS. You may not like it, but I feel like many nations in the Middle East will be good friends with China. The United States is keep bombing and helping Israel. Do you even know what happened to Kurds after Trump withdrawal of U.S. troops? Trump is building a wall border between the United States and Mexico. I think Trump is no different than China, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
... I was specifically referring to the people responsible for the murky trade, not all Chinese or Vietnamese people. As in, if those who are responsible for this murky trade in wildlife, by paying poachers to kill these animals, get financially affected by Trump's trade war or a recession, then I have no sympathy for them, because they are using their money for the wrong purpose, but of course, if people who are innocent of things like that get affected, then I would sympathise with them.
I remember an earlier post about the "Bach brothers" of Thailand having an economic empire that is based on poaching and the illegal trade in wildlife, and being associated with at least 3 mainstream Lao companies and a Chinese accomplice known as the "Ivory Queen", and that getting them prosecuted was difficult, at partly due to their connection with corrupt officials. As mentioned by the National Geographic, "Wildlife trafficking is believed to be a multibillion-dollar black market of low risk and high rewards. Anti-wildlife trafficking advocates say successful prosecutions rare." It's guys like the Bach brothers that I'm talking about, I would be happy to see people like them have their income or revenue decreased by a recession or other economic woes, so that it's harder for them to pay people to kill wild animals, not good people in those places who don't do such things: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...g-kingpin/, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ng-network, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ng-suspect
I don't think you know how the world works. You look like high school or middle school kid spending your time in online. All of those problems are equally going on in Latin America since I lived in Mexico. The same as other Middle East, and other countries. China, Vietnam, and Taiwan are the highest for sure. Do you think Trump's trade war against UAE and other Middle East countries will prevent Muslims to stop becoming terrorists? What is behind of poaching that western media never going to cover: penury. They will still poach animals to feed their family even if China and Vietnam stop buying those products. China and other western countries are trying to use poor countries in Africa and Latin America to use their resource. You do know coltan in the Congo. I can never understand. Many western Europeans tyrannized other continent since the 15h century. The Native Americans and Africans are the most poor people. China is helping many Africa without any treaty compare to western countries. Many African governments want to Chinese side, and western countries are angry about it. Europe killed entire their animals, moreover animals in different continents first. Then they are making rule for Africa to manage animals in Africa? Does it make sense to you? Some of my African friends think Europe and U.S. shouldn't involve any situations in Africa. I am quarter Palestinian, and everything that comes from UK and France are useless and pathetic. They should rather get rid off nukes they have first.
Wild big cats, and tigers in particular, top the list of every poacher. In spite of the efforts to protect them, the number of tigers still is going downhill. Today (2019), there are less than 4,000 wild tigers left in Asia.
As a result of the strong demand for tiger products, producers started breeding tigers themselves. They also decided to widen the definition of 'tiger' products, meaning they're now after wild lions, jaguars and leopards. The number of wild lions in particular is rapidly decreasing.
Hunters no like. They, unlike poachers, often pay a small fortune for a permit to 'hunt' a wild lion. And they want to see big lions. The question, therefore, is if lower numbers really affect size. Chomba, Senzola, Chabwela and Nyirendo concluded the effect is very limited.
In the short run, that is.
A century ago, Amur tigers were almost hunted to extinction. In the period 1900-1940, they really walked the edge. In spite of the very limited numbers, large Amur tigers have been shot in the forties and fifties of the last century. A few of them, allegedly, well exceeded 600 pounds. After 1970, however, the size of wild Amur tigers declined.
As a result of protection, Amur tigers were able to recover to an extent. Today, there are about 600 Amur tigers. In spite of the increase in numbers, males exceeding 440 pounds are few and far between. Gene depletion at work.
Anyhow. Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, in spite of the pressure on wild animals, produced quite a few big-skulled lions in the period 1967-2000. This article had a lot of interesting figures and tables. A good read.
(11-16-2019, 02:44 AM)peter Wrote: Article: Lion hunting and trophy quality records in Zambia for the period 19670-2000: Will the trends in trophy size drop as lion population declines
Authors: Chansa Chomba, Ramadhani Senzola, Harry Chabwela and Vincent Nyirendo
Wild big cats, and tigers in particular, top the list of every poacher. In spite of the efforts to protect them, the number of tigers still is going downhill. Today (2019), there are less than 4,000 wild tigers left in Asia.
As a result of the strong demand for tiger products, producers started breeding tigers themselves. They also decided to widen the definition of 'tiger' products, meaning they're now after wild lions, jaguars and leopards. The number of wild lions in particular is rapidly decreasing.
Hunters no like. They, unlike poachers, often pay a small fortune for a permit to 'hunt' a wild lion. And they want to see big lions. The question, therefore, is if lower numbers really affect size. Chomba, Senzola, Chabwela and Nyirendo concluded the effect is very limited.
In the short run, that is.
A century ago, Amur tigers were almost hunted to extinction. In the period 1900-1940, they really walked the edge. In spite of the very limited numbers, large Amur tigers have been shot in the forties and fifties of the last century. A few of them, allegedly, well exceeded 600 pounds. After 1970, however, the size of wild Amur tigers declined.
As a result of protection, Amur tigers were able to recover to an extent. Today, there are about 600 Amur tigers. In spite of the increase in numbers, males exceeding 440 pounds are few and far between. Gene depletion at work.
Anyhow. Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe, in spite of the pressure on wild animals, produced quite a few big-skulled lions in the period 1967-2000. This article had a lot of interesting figures and tables. A good read.
Many of the earth's great beasts have been or are being reduced in their majesty - the great elephant 'tuskers', the huge lions and tigers, etc. Do we have any real data on if lions specifically have decreased in size significantly?
11-16-2019, 04:13 PM( This post was last modified: 11-16-2019, 04:20 PM by BorneanTiger )
(11-16-2019, 02:44 AM)lionjaguar Wrote:
(11-14-2019, 10:39 AM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(11-14-2019, 03:58 AM)lionjaguar Wrote:
(11-12-2019, 01:29 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(11-12-2019, 12:05 AM)Sully Wrote: Study finds lions face new threat -poaching and trade in their body parts
Governments and conservationists should adopt holistic and collaborative approaches to preventing and halting the poaching of and trade in the body parts of lions.
This call is contained in a new study which provides evidence of this emerging threat to African lion conservation.
The study, published in October in international journal Biodiversity and Conservation, warns that this growing threat could have a devastating affect on lion populations, mirroring similar affects on wild tiger populations.
The study presented data from field surveys conducted in the Mozambican portion of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, an area between SA, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, between 2011 and 2018.
“We documented 49 lion deaths caused by humans across the study area during the entire study period,” the study said.
The targeted poaching of lions for body parts accounted for 35% of known human-caused mortalities across the landscape, it added.
The researchers also found that retaliatory killing for livestock conflict accounted for 51% of mortalities, but body parts were removed in 48% of conflict cases, suggesting that the demand for body parts was escalating conflict killings.
Teeth and claws were the parts most frequently harvested, with an alarming and dramatic increase from 2014.
“We recorded reports of four cases where lion body parts were confiscated in Mozambique between 2013 and 2017. Of these known cases, canine teeth and claws were confiscated twice, skin, meat and fat once and a full skeleton once.”
The study said two shipments of teeth and claws were confiscated by Mozambican government authorities in 2016 at an international airport. They were destined for Vietnam, with one of the seizures including a combination of lion parts and elephant ivory.
Lead author of the study, Dr Kris Everatt, Panthera’s bushmeat poaching programme manager, said lions already faced a litany threats, from dwindling prey populations to conflict with cattle farmers.
Everatt said the study demonstrated that lions were increasingly confronting the threat of poaching for body parts, often under the guise of human-lion conflict.
He said factors driving this type of poaching remained poorly understood, but that the number of carcasses of captive-bred lions exported from SA had grown exponentially since 2007.
This trade fed a growing market among upwardly mobile Asians for luxury products, such as lion bone wine, with lion bones used in place of tiger bones, as tiger parts become increasingly scarce.
Yes, but not totally new, because I mentioned 5 months before in the tiger thread that because tigers or their parts are getting scarcer or harder to obtain, the "tiger-eaters" have turned their attention to lions, particularly canned South African lions, so I wouldn't feel sorry for them if Trump's trade war or a new global recession (which this Chinese newspaper says China won't be able to save the World from) affects their financial ability to keep the murky trade going: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world...59216.html
That is so pathetic.
Quote:so I wouldn't feel sorry for them if Trump's trade war or a new global recession
I have Chinese and Vietnamese friends, and I think small populations of them are involving in those markets. Your statement is the same as Trump is correct to banning Arab Muslim immigrants since they are terrorists because of Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and ISIS. You may not like it, but I feel like many nations in the Middle East will be good friends with China. The United States is keep bombing and helping Israel. Do you even know what happened to Kurds after Trump withdrawal of U.S. troops? Trump is building a wall border between the United States and Mexico. I think Trump is no different than China, Vietnam, and Taiwan.
... I was specifically referring to the people responsible for the murky trade, not all Chinese or Vietnamese people. As in, if those who are responsible for this murky trade in wildlife, by paying poachers to kill these animals, get financially affected by Trump's trade war or a recession, then I have no sympathy for them, because they are using their money for the wrong purpose, but of course, if people who are innocent of things like that get affected, then I would sympathise with them.
I remember an earlier post about the "Bach brothers" of Thailand having an economic empire that is based on poaching and the illegal trade in wildlife, and being associated with at least 3 mainstream Lao companies and a Chinese accomplice known as the "Ivory Queen", and that getting them prosecuted was difficult, at partly due to their connection with corrupt officials. As mentioned by the National Geographic, "Wildlife trafficking is believed to be a multibillion-dollar black market of low risk and high rewards. Anti-wildlife trafficking advocates say successful prosecutions rare." It's guys like the Bach brothers that I'm talking about, I would be happy to see people like them have their income or revenue decreased by a recession or other economic woes, so that it's harder for them to pay people to kill wild animals, not good people in those places who don't do such things: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/anima...g-kingpin/, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ng-network, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/...ng-suspect
I don't think you know how the world works. You look like high school or middle school kid spending your time in online. All of those problems are equally going on in Latin America since I lived in Mexico. The same as other Middle East, and other countries. China, Vietnam, and Taiwan are the highest for sure. Do you think Trump's trade war against UAE and other Middle East countries will prevent Muslims to stop becoming terrorists? What is behind of poaching that western media never going to cover: penury. They will still poach animals to feed their family even if China and Vietnam stop buying those products. China and other western countries are trying to use poor countries in Africa and Latin America to use their resource. You do know coltan in the Congo. I can never understand. Many western Europeans tyrannized other continent since the 15h century. The Native Americans and Africans are the most poor people. China is helping many Africa without any treaty compare to western countries. Many African governments want to Chinese side, and western countries are angry about it. Europe killed entire their animals, moreover animals in different continents first. Then they are making rule for Africa to manage animals in Africa? Does it make sense to you? Some of my African friends think Europe and U.S. shouldn't involve any situations in Africa. I am quarter Palestinian, and everything that comes from UK and France are useless and pathetic. They should rather get rid off nukes they have first.
This is not a condemnation of those who resort to such measures out of perjury, indeed, I cautioned earlier that there's a different between poachers who are forced by poverty to do what they do, and rich trophy hunters who kill animals out of pleasure, it's a condemnation of those who use their wealth for such things, as in those who are rich, like the Bach brothers above.
(11-12-2019, 02:12 PM)Kingtheropod Wrote: All these weights are basically what has been stated in other sources. For South African lions, the average is about 190 kg, or about 10-20 kg more then that of East Africa.
The weights for Namibia and Botswana however are certainly outliners here. The weights for South Africa and Zimbabwe are literally identical, but the other two locations have a noticeable difference. The smaller size of lions in Botswana I would imagine are likely due to environment (swamp lands), but for Namibia I can't say for sure.
Lions in Southern Africa seems to be heavier than those from other areas of the same continent. Let's remember than those from West Africa had an average weight of 158 kg and those from India 163 kg. If we take the lions from Addis Adaba as surrogates of they wild counterparts (like I done with the captive Malayan tigers), the average for Ethiopia lions will be of 137 kg. So it seems that the lions from the southern areas are heavier.
Botswana lions seems smaller but is probablly because some small lions were included from Smithers, but he don't include details. Those from Namibia seems heavier but is because they include stomach content, remember that the late Dr Hu Berry estimated that his heaviest lion had at least 20 kg of bait included and those from Hobatere lions were also baited.
We can conclude that apart from the not quite normal lions from the Ngonrongoro crates, the lions from Southern Africa are indeed the largest ones.
(11-14-2019, 03:31 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: Fabulous post. Do the same for lions in other Africa and Asia along with jaguars.
Sadly, there is very few informations from lions of other parts of Africa in both hunting and scientific records. I can quote these old images, which data has not changed at all.
From East Africa, male lions seems to average about 180 kg, although those from Loliondo region in Tanzania average about 155 kg, the heaviest been 180 kg (De Almeida, 1990); also those from the Crater has not been weighed or measured, but Dr Packer told me in personal communication that the largest chest girth recorded by him was of 143 cm, so they are truly large. The measurements in the image were taken "between pegs".
*This image is copyright of its original author
Lions from west Africa have even less information, been only measured and weighed by scientists, as far I know, and just one skull (that I manage to found, from J. H. Mazák) that is no larger than an average male from East Africa. This image contain the data of that population, togheter with the only reliable data about the Barbary lions, which seems to be of the same size than other African lions:
*This image is copyright of its original author
Please remember that the Barbary lion is scaled to its maximum size reliable recorded, also all specimens from "Barbary" in the list are captive specimens, even the skulls, although from wild origin (except the weight which probably was from a wild animal). All measurements were taken "along the curves".
About the Indian lions, you can see this image that include all the specimens measured "between pegs" in litterature:
*This image is copyright of its original author
About the weights and modern measurements "along the curves", published by Dr Jhala and his team in 2019, check this new furnished image:
*This image is copyright of its original author
This exaust all the information that I have from the lion - Panthera leo, using measurements and weights available in litterature, from realiable sources and excluding old "over curves" measurements. I have more data on skulls, by the way. No available mesaurements from middle East, just skulls and none of them surpass those from India.
About jaguars, I had many information that I sadly lost, but the table of Sunquist & Sunquist (2002) is still mandatory. About the largest and the smallest jaguar population I made this image some years ago:
*This image is copyright of its original author
I need to re-size the specimens, specially those from Central America, as in the image they look too "long".
(11-15-2019, 09:11 AM)BlakeW39 Wrote: I'm mostly a lurker, but I must say that whenever you post it is a true joy to me haha. Much respect man.
Anyway, it appears like lions of southern Africa have an approximate average body mass of 192kg or approximately 425lbs, in juxtaposition to the cats most usually compared to them, other lion populations as well as tigers: East African lions weigh 400-410lbs on average or 180-185kg? This would mean that Southern African lions are approximately (if we take these as, say, 181kg) 10kg or 22lbs heavier which a difference of 6%, similar to Begal tigers which if I remember correctly you calculated to average approximately 205kg, a 6% difference. The northern populations of lions all seem to be smaller than the above larger cats - 170-175kg, which is >400lbs, potentially as low as 160kg though I believe that low number may be just due to scarcity of prey. I think this gives us a good understanding of where it's all at, yes?
Might you know where these lion populations stand in terms of girth or robusticity/build? I wanted to ask you this on the tiger thread as well but I figured I'd dig through that one to see if there are any, though if you have an average memorized it'd be very much appreciated. Also are the Okavango lions measured? Similarly the Ngorongoro beasts? The Ngorongoro lions seem to be more of an outlier, but the Okavango would raise the Botswanan average, no? Thanks!
Thanks for your support!
I will say that about 191 kg is the average for male lions in Souther Africa overall and about 174 kg for those in East Africa overall. Those from West Africa are of 158 kg and those from India are 163 kg. Those from the Barbary region are unknown and also all the population from middle east, which based in skulls and artistic representations seems to be small (Divyabhanusinh, 2005). For Bengal tigers, the average weight of 200 kg is correct for the Bengal tiger including Sundarbans or 210 kg for mainland males only. For details on Bengal tigers check the following link, post No. 362 and others previous to it: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-modern-...rs?page=25
On the chest girths, you can see the details in my previous posts in this topic, specifically No. 260 and 278.
There are no measurements from lions in the Okavango delta and about the Ngorongoro crater, just chest measurements are available and are matched (or maybe surpassed?) by the lions in Namibia. There is confusion about the lions from Okavango, the Jouberts said that the "lionesses" were exceptionally large based in visual perception but they never said that about male lions. Sadly there are no measurements or weights available for tha specific area yet.
(11-15-2019, 09:11 AM)BlakeW39 Wrote: I'm mostly a lurker, but I must say that whenever you post it is a true joy to me haha. Much respect man.
Anyway, it appears like lions of southern Africa have an approximate average body mass of 192kg or approximately 425lbs, in juxtaposition to the cats most usually compared to them, other lion populations as well as tigers: East African lions weigh 400-410lbs on average or 180-185kg? This would mean that Southern African lions are approximately (if we take these as, say, 181kg) 10kg or 22lbs heavier which a difference of 6%, similar to Begal tigers which if I remember correctly you calculated to average approximately 205kg, a 6% difference. The northern populations of lions all seem to be smaller than the above larger cats - 170-175kg, which is >400lbs, potentially as low as 160kg though I believe that low number may be just due to scarcity of prey. I think this gives us a good understanding of where it's all at, yes?
Might you know where these lion populations stand in terms of girth or robusticity/build? I wanted to ask you this on the tiger thread as well but I figured I'd dig through that one to see if there are any, though if you have an average memorized it'd be very much appreciated. Also are the Okavango lions measured? Similarly the Ngorongoro beasts? The Ngorongoro lions seem to be more of an outlier, but the Okavango would raise the Botswanan average, no? Thanks!
Thanks for your support!
I will say that about 191 kg is the average for male lions in Souther Africa overall and about 174 kg for those in East Africa overall. Those from West Africa are of 158 kg and those from India are 163 kg. Those from the Barbary region are unknown and also all the population from middle east, which based in skulls and artistic representations seems to be small (Divyabhanusinh, 2005). For Bengal tigers, the average weight of 200 kg is correct for the Bengal tiger including Sundarbans or 210 kg for mainland males only. For details on Bengal tigers check the following link, post No. 362 and others previous to it: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-modern-...rs?page=25
On the chest girths, you can see the details in my previous posts in this topic, specifically No. 260 and 278.
There are no measurements from lions in the Okavango delta and about the Ngorongoro crater, just chest measurements are available and are matched (or maybe surpassed?) by the lions in Namibia. There is confusion about the lions from Okavango, the Jouberts said that the "lionesses" were exceptionally large based in visual perception but they never said that about male lions. Sadly there are no measurements or weights available for tha specific area yet.
Ah interesting. I'm curious as to where the 174kg is coming from because your chart says ~180kg(?) and thanks for the chest girths, I found some pretty good ones :) I got an average of ~125cm for lions, and ~120cm for tigers over on that thread. I assumed tigers had slightly bigger chests due to their slightly larger size, are my numbers correct? I guess they could make up for that in a bit if body length.
The East African lions though are a puzzle for me. Prior to joining this very helpful forum, I had heard that they were mostly pretty similar to the lions further south. But it seems you have come to the conclusion that the South African lions are slightly larger. I generally had a hunch that the lions of S.A. would be very slightly larger, but others said E.A. was. Are the smaller lions recent or has it always been this way? You'd think that with more open spaces and greater prey numbers that E.A. lions would be the biggest - maybe Bergmann's rule? It seems strange. How much do we have on the Maasai Mara? Are they the same as the Serengeti, smaller, larger, etc.? Can't find anything on them haha. Thanks again for your efforts!
(11-19-2019, 09:13 AM)BlakeW39 Wrote: Ah interesting. I'm curious as to where the 174kg is coming from because your chart says ~180kg(?) and thanks for the chest girths, I found some pretty good ones :) I got an average of ~125cm for lions, and ~120cm for tigers over on that thread. I assumed tigers had slightly bigger chests due to their slightly larger size, are my numbers correct? I guess they could make up for that in a bit if body length.
The East African lions though are a puzzle for me. Prior to joining this very helpful forum, I had heard that they were mostly pretty similar to the lions further south. But it seems you have come to the conclusion that the South African lions are slightly larger. I generally had a hunch that the lions of S.A. would be very slightly larger, but others said E.A. was. Are the smaller lions recent or has it always been this way? You'd think that with more open spaces and greater prey numbers that E.A. lions would be the biggest - maybe Bergmann's rule? It seems strange. How much do we have on the Maasai Mara? Are they the same as the Serengeti, smaller, larger, etc.? Can't find anything on them haha. Thanks again for your efforts!
Good question. In fact, the original source of all the measurements and weights for the East African lions is a paper that I published in 2014 and contains ALL the lion measurements and weights that I found from that area at that moment (attached file). As you will see, the list itself gives an average of 179.5 kg for the 39 males collected, but we need to include the sample of 11 lions from Bertram & King (1976) with an average of 187 kg and the sample of 21 males from De Almeida (1990) with an average of 155 kg. So the "overall" average for all the 71 males in the entire East Africa region is of 174 kg.
Now, the average of 181 kg and 178 kg in my comparative image is based only in the 39 male lions in the document and ignore the other two samples. Also they are separated by time, in order to see if there was a temporal variation in the body mass of those males, as you can see the samples are divided in time ranges.
*This image is copyright of its original author
In my list there are several lions from the Serengeti, but sadly I don't know if some of the specimens are specifically from the Masai Mara, as some of them just say "East Africa" like the largest specimen in the list. However, following the same line as the lions from Southern Africa, if we take the sample by countries and independently of the timeframe, these will be the results:
Kenia - Males: 181.8 kg (n=25) - range: 149.2 - 234 kg.
Females: 128.3 kg (n=21) - range: 92 - 185.5 kg.
Tanzania - Males: 172.2 kg (n=45) - range: 145.4 - 235 kg.
Females: 120.4 kg (n=21) - range: 90.5 - 138 kg.
Somalia - Males: 182.3 (n=1)
If we include the aberrant cattle-lifter male of 272 kg from Kenya, the average increase to 185.3 kg (n=26), still under the larger average figures of male lions in Southern Africa. If someone ask why I did not included the large male of 480 lb (218 kg) quoted in the book of Patterson (2004), you will need to know that is the same male of 204.7 kg reported by Rodgers (1974) but with an empty belly, so is included.
About chest girts, Bengal tigers (130 cm) had larger chest girths than other lion populations, except those from Namibia (130 cm) which match them. Modern Amur tiger chest girts (119 cm) are smaller than the other male lion populations, except those from India (111.3 cm) in modern records. Smuts et al. (1980) present an average chest girth of 117.4 cm (n=8) for male lions in East Africa, but Pfefferle et al. (2007) present an average figure of 122.1 cm (n=13) for male lions in the Serengeti.
11-28-2019, 10:34 PM( This post was last modified: 11-28-2019, 10:34 PM by BorneanTiger )
(10-03-2019, 10:59 PM)BorneanTiger Wrote:
(10-03-2019, 09:16 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: I can't understand after reading this. What is the biggest lion? The Cape lion and Barbary lion were not the biggest lions? Why so many information in internet and book are still saying those 2 lions were the biggest lions?
By reliable measurements, the biggest lion is the Southern subspecies (Panthera leo melanochaita) present in Eastern and Southern Africa, with lions in Southern Africa (e.g. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia) having higher average weights than their relatives in Eastern Africa (see the work of Smuts et al.), and members of the Northern subspecies (Panthera leo leo) in Asia and northern parts of Africa at least looking smaller than the former subspecies.
As for the Barbary and Cape lions, which are now treated as populations within the Northern and Southern subspecies respectively, rather than as subspecies of their own, a reason why people considered them to have been bigger than other lions is similar to why people may think that Siberian tigers are bigger than Bengal tigers in the wild (when in fact it's in captivity that Amur tigers tend to be the biggest tigers, with Bengal tigers outweighing Siberian tigers on average in the wilderness, see the work of Slaght et al.), that is thick hair, the fur in the case of the tiger, and the mane in the case of the lion. Just as an Amur tiger has a thick winter fur which may make it look bigger than a Bengal tiger, the manes of the Barbary and Cape lions were so thick or extensive that they may have made them look bigger than other lions. Otherwise, considering how large contemporary Southern lions can get, it is plausible that the Cape lion was at least one of the biggest lions, see more details in these threads: https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-the-siz...8#pid59978, https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-lions-i...2#pid89772
The Siberian tigers above aren't necessarily bigger than this huge Bengal tiger at Kaziranga National Park, northeast India, but the first tiger may look big because of its thick winter fur: http://tigerworld-parvez.blogspot.com/20...engal.html
*This image is copyright of its original author
As someone remarked in this forum for hunters (after someone suggested that this was the biggest African lion), it looks like a "black-maned" Cape lion:
Just as the Amur tigers above aren't necessarily bigger than that Bengal tiger, the lion above doesn't have to be bigger than this Southwest African lion in Etosha National Park, Namibia, but it may look bigger than this lion because of its thick, belly-covering mane: http://www.africaphotography.co.za/etosha-august-2014/
These so-called "Barbary lions" look bigger than other lions because of their manes and muscular physiques:
Speaking of Barbary lions and Amur tigers, one thing that struck me is how similar their habitats, the regions of the Atlas and Sikhote-Alin Mountains respectively, are or were, particularly when there's snow, and the fact that both have deer, and used to have brown bears (assuming that the Atlas bear was of the brown race): https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-barbary...9#pid95339
Dereck Joubert: " Whether it’s habitat loss, poaching, human-wildlife conflict or trophy hunting, lions today face unprecedented threats due to human activity – and raising awareness about this is an essential part of the work we do. The extent of one of those threats was recently brought into sharper focus: in some parts of Africa, poaching for body parts like claws and teeth now accounts for 35% of all human-caused lion deaths. Even lions killed in retaliatory conflicts are now being found with body parts removed. We are seeing more and more how cumulative and interrelated these threats are – and why it is critical that the fight to protect big cats is fought on every front ".
ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)
