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Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures

Lions (Panthera leo) feed on diverse prey species, a range that is broadened by their cooperative hunting. Although humans are not typical prey, habitual man-eating by lions is well documented. Fathoming the motivations of the Tsavo and Mfuwe man-eaters (killed in 1898 in Kenya and 1991 in Zambia, r...

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Autores principales: DeSantis, Larisa R. G., Patterson, Bruce D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430416/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28424462
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00948-5
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author DeSantis, Larisa R. G.
Patterson, Bruce D.
author_facet DeSantis, Larisa R. G.
Patterson, Bruce D.
author_sort DeSantis, Larisa R. G.
collection PubMed
description Lions (Panthera leo) feed on diverse prey species, a range that is broadened by their cooperative hunting. Although humans are not typical prey, habitual man-eating by lions is well documented. Fathoming the motivations of the Tsavo and Mfuwe man-eaters (killed in 1898 in Kenya and 1991 in Zambia, respectively) may be elusive, but we can clarify aspects of their behaviour using dental microwear texture analysis. Specifically, we analysed the surface textures of lion teeth to assess whether these notorious man-eating lions scavenged carcasses during their depredations. Compared to wild-caught lions elsewhere in Africa and other large feliforms, including cheetahs and hyenas, dental microwear textures of the man-eaters do not suggest extreme durophagy (e.g. bone processing) shortly before death. Dental injuries to two of the three man-eaters examined may have induced shifts in feeding onto softer foods. Further, prompt carcass reclamation by humans likely limited the man-eaters’ access to bones. Man-eating was likely a viable alternative to hunting and/or scavenging ungulates due to dental disease and/or limited prey availability.
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spelling pubmed-54304162017-05-15 Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures DeSantis, Larisa R. G. Patterson, Bruce D. Sci Rep Article Lions (Panthera leo) feed on diverse prey species, a range that is broadened by their cooperative hunting. Although humans are not typical prey, habitual man-eating by lions is well documented. Fathoming the motivations of the Tsavo and Mfuwe man-eaters (killed in 1898 in Kenya and 1991 in Zambia, respectively) may be elusive, but we can clarify aspects of their behaviour using dental microwear texture analysis. Specifically, we analysed the surface textures of lion teeth to assess whether these notorious man-eating lions scavenged carcasses during their depredations. Compared to wild-caught lions elsewhere in Africa and other large feliforms, including cheetahs and hyenas, dental microwear textures of the man-eaters do not suggest extreme durophagy (e.g. bone processing) shortly before death. Dental injuries to two of the three man-eaters examined may have induced shifts in feeding onto softer foods. Further, prompt carcass reclamation by humans likely limited the man-eaters’ access to bones. Man-eating was likely a viable alternative to hunting and/or scavenging ungulates due to dental disease and/or limited prey availability. Nature Publishing Group UK 2017-04-19 /pmc/articles/PMC5430416/ /pubmed/28424462 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00948-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
DeSantis, Larisa R. G.
Patterson, Bruce D.
Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
title Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
title_full Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
title_fullStr Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
title_full_unstemmed Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
title_short Dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
title_sort dietary behaviour of man-eating lions as revealed by dental microwear textures
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430416/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28424462
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-00948-5
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