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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)
ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)
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ON THE EDGE OF EXTINCTION - B - THE LION (Panthera leo)
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Dereck Joubert: " We have spent so much of our lives learning about lions in all their wild, unfettered glory. A long time-out in the languid heat of the day … the high-stakes ferocity of a buffalo hunt … the complex, often brutal, machinations of family life – it has been our great privilege to observe these predators living out their own lives in the way that nature dictates. This makes us acutely aware of just how pernicious, cruel and profoundly unnatural the lion farming industry is. A recent article on the subject paints a devastating picture. It’s an important read – the link is in the bio. ".
 (11-14-2019, 10:39 AM)BorneanTiger Wrote: ... 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. (11-16-2019, 02:44 AM)lionjaguar Wrote: 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. Try not to bring in politics unless absolutely necessary... & definitely not unrelated topics. 
Lion Recovery Fund
Small update from South Sudan. South Sudan still has significant lion populations, but receives very little conservation attention due to the ongoing civil war. We are working with WCS SOUTH SUDAN to make sure these populations are protected by funding their efforts to strengthen law enforcement within Boma and Bandingilo national parks to tackle poaching. Last month they finished a 21-day training of 23 rangers and officers. These trainees learned best practices in wildlife law enforcement, data collection, camera trap use, and much more. During the last week of their training, they heard lions roaring every night—the lions must have been celebrating the end of their successful training!  
Female and Male skulls, female measured 32cmx26cm and male 40cmx27cm
Credit to @the.underground.hoard  *This image is copyright of its original author  *This image is copyright of its original author
 (12-28-2019, 10:01 PM)epaiva Wrote: Female and Male skulls, female measured 32cmx26cm and male 40cmx27cm I wonder why always only lenght and width are mentioned with skulls. This pair is once again a good example why also height would be interesting to have, skull is after all 3 dimensional, not 2 dimensional. Naturally this isn´t so important when comparing individuals of same species, but when comparing different species to each others.  (12-28-2019, 10:01 PM)epaiva Wrote: Female and Male skulls, female measured 32cmx26cm and male 40cmx27cm I don't know how reliable are those measurements. Incredible but few people know how to measure a cat skull correctly and many times the measurements published in webpages were taken with a tape along the contour of the skull. Those skulls are so nice, perfect and clean that, or were from captive specimens that were cleaned very well or are just casts of plastic.
The body size of the lion (Panthera leo) - Final work:
I finally manage to compile all the information about the body size and weight for all the lion populations from which we have actual data. I manage to put it in one big image so here is the compilation of data about the body size and weight from Panthera leo:  *This image is copyright of its original author This time I manage to put important remarks between the notes and the size of the Barbary lion reflects an "average" specimen, which now shows that it will be about the same size than the other populations of its subspecies. By the way, I know that a Barbary lion in the wild will probably not look like this, but as all the data available came from captive animals, I deciced to use a captive specimen. Other remark on the body measurements, especifically the total length/head-body/shoulder height from Indian lions reported by Jhala et al., (2019) were not included as were taken "along the curves" and I allready had measurements "between pegs" which are more reliable, but chest girths and weights did were included. Also, for space issues, I just used the most extreme populations from the Southern lions and I did not included the populations of Zimbabwe and Botswana, so here you have the original table again, and can be used like a completement/Appendix to the previous image presented here:  *This image is copyright of its original author Finally, we must not forget the particular population of lions in Ethiopia, which we only know captive specimens in the Addis Ababa Zoo, and we can't discard its measurements as we can use them like surrogates from the wild population if necesary, like we do with the Malayan and South China tigers, so I add this image too:  *This image is copyright of its original author Finally about skulls, I have more information about many populations, which include that from J. H. Mazák (2010), Roosevelt & Heller (1914), Hartstone-Rose et al. (2014) and Stevenson Hamilton (1947), however with the last one I was searching in the book (yes, now I have the book!  ) and he did not describe the method of measurements and I affraid that probably he measured his lion skulls "between perpendiculars" which was the method used by most hunters in his days and which, compared with measurements with callipers, may slightly increase the length, specially if the mandible is still attached to the skull. That is why I used only skulls measures by Zoologists using callipers. I think that, for the moment, these three tables/images summarize my data about the body size of the lion at this moment (January 2020), if someone have a doubt or request specific data from a population, feel free to ask. Greetings and cheers to all. 
 (02-11-2020, 11:03 PM)GuateGojira Wrote: The body size of the lion (Panthera leo) - Final work:Spectacular work Guate, appriciate this so much. How about the 272 kg male from Mount Kenya?
@GuateGojira So the West African Lion is the smallest subspecies?
Anyway, Asiatic Lions had lower testosterone levels compared to African Lions due to being an isolated population.  *This image is copyright of its original author source: Annual Report, Volume 1 By National Cancer Institute (U.S.). Division of Cancer Etiology (02-12-2020, 07:20 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: Oh sorry my bad, where have you read it was abnormally bulky? The known facts are that we know that the lion was killed for killing cattle and that weighed 272 kg, now we know that all the cats that kill cattle are: 1-light in weight and in bad shape , 2-heavy in weight and in very bulky. Definitelly this lion, like those from southwest Africa (Etosha and Hobatere, for example) are very fat for killing cattle and like Gerald Wood said, those big tigers (and lions) in the past that weighed so much were cattle killers and consequently very bulky. Now, this "bulkiness" is not normal, so that lion was obviously abnormally bulky, proof of that is that the heaviest lions that I manage to found in the area were two males of about 235 kg, one came from Rowland Ward Records fo Big Game (234 kg) and its reliability will be allways open to debate, the other one is the male "Puyol" (235 kg) which according with the people that captured him it had stomach content on him. The next heaviest male is a male of 230 kg in the Aberdares, Kenya (no other information is available for the specimen) and after that all the other weights are less than 205 kg, and this is from a sample of 71 males from the entire area. This means that those big lions were exceptional or that included some stomach content. There is a difference of 37 kg between the 272 kg giant lion and the biggest one of my sample, which certainly makes it exceptional and because that body mass was created for its taste for the ease-prey domestic cattle, that bulkiness was not normal. Interesting is the fact that in Southern Africa the male lions reach bigger figures with weights up to 250 kg "empty" (especifically South Africa), which is the better candidate to compite with the Bengal tigers for the heaviest cat today. Tigers from Kaziranga and lions from the Crater don't count, as there is no information of them at this moment and all is just speculation. (02-13-2020, 09:34 AM)Styx38 Wrote: So the West African Lion is the smallest subspecies? In the wild, at this moment, yes. Male lions from Ethiopia had an average weight of 137.2 kg, but that came from captive specimens. Is like Malayan tigers, they had an average weight of 120 kg but are also captive specimens. We can use them for comparison, but will generate doubt about the accuracy of the final results. (02-17-2020, 10:15 PM)GuateGojira Wrote:(02-12-2020, 07:20 AM)Pantherinae Wrote: Oh sorry my bad, where have you read it was abnormally bulky? Do we know how often he had killed cattle? Still the lion as far as I know was healthy and territorial and also some males rarely participate in hunting(only eats) yet never seems to be abnormally bulky. Almost every gir lion is a cattle killer, yet most males never seems abnormally bulky. I think maybe male lions are different to tigers as male tigers finding plenty of easy prey changes his lifestyle more drastically than a male lion, as he usually needs to be super fit to chase down fast prey like deer, whereas some male lions can probably go a year without hunting especially males with injuried hind legs. Some Lions just has to be fit enough to patrol and protect his territory. Lion huting was banned in Kenya 1977 and I think it has taken a couple of decades before big lions became a regular sight again, as large individuals must have been targeted in the past and the few good genes that survived has now gotten time to spread out again. Largest lioness as far as I know is also from East Africa, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the largest males where from that region as well. |
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