http://www.sciencemag.org/news...eat-35-men-bad-teeth

Link has a photo of one of the lion's skull.



Why did these lions eat 35 men? Bad teeth

By Virginia MorellApr. 19, 2017 , 5:00 AM

In 1898, two male African lions killed 35 people in the Tsavo region of Kenya. Their 9-month reign of terror ended when Colonel John Patterson of the British Army shot them dead. Scientists have long debated why the lions began eating people. Now, two researchers have a new answer: They blame tooth decay for the big cats’ taste for human flesh. The finding might also explain why other lions sometimes turn into man-eaters.

Lions normally consume a diverse variety of animals including buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, and antelope. Humans figure into their diets only rarely. In the 3 months before their deaths, however, the Tsavo man-eaters got nearly 30% of their food from people, according to one recent study. Did the lions focus on humans because they were desperate? Many scientists think so. Apparently suffering from starvation—likely because drought or disease had ravaged their usual prey—they turned to another toothsome delicacy.

But other researchers have turned up conflicting evidence. Larisa DeSantis, a paleontologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, wanted a look at the lion’s preserved teeth after reading a frightful passage from Patterson’s 1907 account, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo: “I have a very vivid recollection of one particular night when the brutes seized a man from the railway camp and brought him close to my camp to devour. I could plainly hear them crunching the bones, and the sound … rang in my ears for days afterwards.” If the lions were that hungry, DeSantis reasoned, they must have also scavenged carcasses, a process that involves heavy bone-crunching and wears down the teeth in predictable patterns.



To find out, she and a colleague analyzed the lions’ jaws and teeth, as well as those of a third man-eater from Zambia—all stored at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. They used a technique that can determine if an animal is eating mostly flesh, bones, or some combination of the two. They then compared the patterns on the man-eaters’ teeth to those of 53 wild lion specimens from across Africa, two from India, and five captive lions. Next, the scientists examined the patterns on the teeth of cheetahs, which dine solely on flesh, and hyenas, which typically consume entire carcasses including the bones.


The Tsavo lions’ teeth did not look like those of hyenas, DeSantis says. Instead, the wear patterns were “strikingly similar” to those of the zoo lions, which eat soft foods like beef and horsemeat. She thinks Patterson was actually hearing the sounds of hyenas that dreadful night.

Other research points out why the lions’ dining preference shifted. One lion—the one that ate the most flesh—was known from a previous study to suffer from dental disease. A painful abscess at the root of one of his canines would have made normal hunting—grabbing and suffocating large prey—impossible, DeSantis says. His partner also had dental and jaw injuries, but these were less serious. The Zambian man-eater, which did not consume bone, was also suffering from severe damage to its jaws. Together, this means that dental injuries and disease likely led these lions to softer foods, the researchers write today in Scientific Reports.

“[This] provides first-hand information straight from the lions’ teeth that there is little evidence to support bone-eating by the Tsavo lions,” says Jack Tseng, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Buffalo in New York who was not involved in the study. “Any human bone consumption at the time was much more likely the work of the usual suspects—hyenas—than meat-specializing felines.”

But the scientists emphasize that bad teeth alone do not make lions into man-eaters. “[They] probably targeted humans because they were easy and had soft flesh,” says DeSantis, noting that the cats didn’t consume entire carcasses. They were also doing what lions do best: hunting opportunistically from a menu that has, since the emergence of early humans, occasionally included people.

Posted in: Plants & Animals
DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1068

I saw these lions in the mid 90's in the Field Museum of Natural History. The were certainly large well fed lions.

This is all bullshit!

They just took a liking to Indian take away

quote:

This is all bullshit!

Revisionists = Re-write history at every chance!

This has been agrued every ten years. The history channel (back when it did History) did a documentary in 2000s. The forensic opinion was that the tooth/jaws would not prevent killing normal pray. The conclusion was a combination of drought conditions (less natural pray) and availability was the main factors to man eating. Made sense to me then, and still does.

36 is just gluttony

Because they could?

Mouth of the Nyimba man eater shot by Thor Kirchner showing missing canine due to infection of top jaw.

One glaring assumption is that the crunching of small and fragile human bones would cause the same deterioration of the teeth as crushing large bovine and zebra bones. I think not.

Of course, I am assuming this damage was not done before the loins turned to man eating.

I would love to see the teeth of the man eater in Tanzania in 2006 that was filmed chasing whole villages across the river. They named him Osama.

There was a tiger in India in 2012/14 that was never captured or killed. She is believed to been filmed. I guess her man eating revolves/ed around pregnancy as it appears to be seasonal. Just my guess.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtrvtShpmcA


Vanderbilt University video concerning the research.

Just completed a Lion ageing workshop in Zambia with all the so called experts.

Blunt teeth = old Lion

Sharp teeth = young Lion

Big mane = Big Lion

Small mane = Small Lion

Quite simple really.

Oh and if the cat is really spotty it is either a young Lion or Leopard.

Because they were hungry
That is the only reason a lion needs to eat people

They got bad teeth from eating humans because we are so sweet

I vote for laziness and bad taste!

In Jim Corbett's writings of maneaters most if not all (if I recall correctly) had poor condition, worn teeth or some other injury (often porcupine quills in jaw or paws) that he attributed to them becoming maneaters.

There was one instance of a tigress and her grown cub(s) where after the mother was killed the cubs continued killing people. The cubs were perfectly healthy so his theory was they were habituated by the mother which makes sense.

Maybe a similar case with the Tsavo lions where one set an example for the others?

As a side note tiger behavior seems to be quite different from lion behavior at least on the surface. Videos from wildlife parks in India show many very close encounters of tigers with tourists in open vehicles. I wonder if they would fare as well with African lions.

I keep reading that maneaters resort to eating humans when they have bad teeth or are in poor health. But has anybody been able to determine the real cause and effect relationship?


Maybe they eat people because people taste so good. Then, how do we know it isn't the eating of human flesh that causes predators to have poor health and tooth decay? Ice cream tastes good but if you eat too much the same will happen to you.

quote:

Originally posted by vvreddy:
In Jim Corbett's writings of maneaters most if not all (if I recall correctly) had poor condition, worn teeth or some other injury (often porcupine quills in jaw or paws) that he attributed to them becoming maneaters.

There was one instance of a tigress and her grown cub(s) where after the mother was killed the cubs continued killing people. The cubs were perfectly healthy so his theory was they were habituated by the mother which makes sense.

Maybe a similar case with the Tsavo lions where one set an example for the others?

As a side note tiger behavior seems to be quite different from lion behavior at least on the surface. Videos from wildlife parks in India show many very close encounters of tigers with tourists in open vehicles. I wonder if they would fare as well with African lions.

Per your side note, I have video and still pics of lions feeding on Cape buff taken from the back of a bakkie in the Moremi Game Reserve((Okavango Delta). I was less than 15-20 yards away on both occasions and the lions ignored me. There were cubs in the area but they stayed back from the kills.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
This is all bullshit!

They just took a liking to Indian take away

OMG Saeed...that is just terrible

Besides the delicious answer by Saeed....

Lets get to the meat of the matter,
why is it uncommon for large predators to kill and eat humans?

Chew on that "science"....

Hi Andrew,

Did you or Thor ever get round to writing this up?

Best wishes,
Milo.

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Mouth of the Nyimba man eater shot by Thor Kirchner showing missing canine due to infection of top jaw.

This pales in comparison to a man-eating spree in the Njombe area of Tanzania around WWII .. over a period of years, in an area about 1600 square miles, approximately 1500 humans were taken by lions. You can read about it in the book "The Hunter is Death" by TV Bulpin, documenting the life and times of George Shelby, an ivory hunter turned game ranger. Shelby, by the way, shot about 600 elephants excluding those shot in his official capacity later in life. At one time, he and the famous Sutherland competed to see who could shoot the most elephants in a year, in what was then French Equatorial Africa.

Anyway it was Shelby's theory that a weak lioness taught her cubs to eat humans, and they then passed the skills down. They were known to take a human who was guarding cattle, in preference to attacking the cows themselves. These lions were extremely brash, sometimes clawing through the thatch roof of a hut and jumping on the terrified occupants from above. But they were also extremely smart, always on the move, and never staying close to a kill. Shelby and his game scouts had great difficulty shooting them, bait and trap guns were totally ineffective, but they did track some of them down and they were in prime condition.

The natives felt the lions were humans who could transform themselves into lions. They claimed that when following tracks from a kill, the lion tracks turned into human footprints. There was a witchdoctor who claimed to control the lions and you could buy a hit job on someone who would then invariably be eaten. Needless to say there was a lot of turnover in the ranks of the game scouts.

I'm actually about to finish 'The Man Eater's of Tsavo'. I'm no lion expert, or expert in anything for that matter, but judging by the frequency with which they were killing it seems to me that it was just a very easy meal that they learned to take advantage of.

That was George Rushby, not "Shelby" sorry for the error. The most famous elephant hunter nobody ever heard of.

quote:

Originally posted by Russ Gould:
This pales in comparison to a man-eating spree in the Njombe area of Tanzania around WWII .. over a period of years, in an area about 1600 square miles, approximately 1500 humans were taken by lions. You can read about it in the book "The Hunter is Death" by TV Bulpin, documenting the life and times of George Shelby, an ivory hunter turned game ranger. Shelby, by the way, shot about 600 elephants excluding those shot in his official capacity later in life. At one time, he and the famous Sutherland competed to see who could shoot the most elephants in a year, in what was then French Equatorial Africa.

Anyway it was Shelby's theory that a weak lioness taught her cubs to eat humans, and they then passed the skills down. They were known to take a human who was guarding cattle, in preference to attacking the cows themselves. These lions were extremely brash, sometimes clawing through the thatch roof of a hut and jumping on the terrified occupants from above. But they were also extremely smart, always on the move, and never staying close to a kill. Shelby and his game scouts had great difficulty shooting them, bait and trap guns were totally ineffective, but they did track some of them down and they were in prime condition.

The natives felt the lions were humans who could transform themselves into lions. They claimed that when following tracks from a kill, the lion tracks turned into human footprints. There was a witchdoctor who claimed to control the lions and you could buy a hit job on someone who would then invariably be eaten. Needless to say there was a lot of turnover in the ranks of the game scouts.

You can also read how seven of the "Maneaters of Njombe" were killed by Keith and Ian Cormack in Ian's book "The Great Ruwaha". As I recall, these lions were all in the prime of life.

This was a single encounter with the pride, not the multiyear quest that Rusby relates through Bulpin.

After seeing this thread I came across this, sorry Cecil lovers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eZ4jVecaio

Great video, thanks!

They're just like us--
If it's easy --take it. If you can't get anything else--take it.

Healthy or unhealthy--it makes not much difference.

We could use some lions on the East and Left coasts. Wouldn't mind some grizzlies in Colorado too, I miss them ever since I left Montana. Hopefully be back soon

Read the "The Lion is Death" series in "African Hunter" of a few years back for the real story of man-eaters.

Lions sometimes eat humans because we are made of protein. The end.

Scientists make the clear complex.

Lion are by nature "lazy" or rather very efficient in that they will mostly sleep, and only hunt when hungry.... for the rest they tend to carnal duties.

They are uber opportunists in that they will scavenge and will take kills from other predators.

One of the more credible theories regarding the Tsavo lions is that there was apparently an abundant supply of dead workers on the railway who were not properly buried and access to these then triggered the man eating behaviour.

The Muslims workers usually cremated the muslim dead but the others were not.

There is another oddity about these lion in that the males do not look like males, they have a very female like appearance and this has also been a source of much study and speculation
( not as to their man eating behaviour but rather interest in their genetics)

The reason those lions killed people is because many of the railroad workers were dieing of Black water, Malaria and some other killer, and they tossed the bodies out in the grass along the RR tracks as they progressed work, as opposed to burying them..The Lions found them and ate those bodies and developed a taste for human flesh and the fact that humans taking a shit were eash to catch...At least that's one opinion and the one I buy off on..Tigers have been doing the same in India for years on end. I thought this to be common knowledge..

quote:

Originally posted by fairgame:
Just completed a Lion ageing workshop in Zambia with all the so called experts.

Blunt teeth = old Lion

Sharp teeth = young Lion

Big mane = Big Lion

Small mane = Small Lion

Quite simple really.

One of those short workshops then