ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)

[GuateGojira]

(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. Reply