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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...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Nature Publishing Group UK
2017
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-5430416 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2017 |
publisher | Nature Publishing Group UK |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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