Sunday, November 8, 2009

How would you know?

CHICAGO (AP) -- They may have been the world's most famous man-eating lions, but it turns out they made other dinner arrangements from time to time.
Scientists have determined that the Tsavo lions probably ate about 35 Kenyans in the 19th century and not the 135 they've long been credited with devouring.
The Tsavo lions are both now stuffed and on display at the Field Museum in Chicago. Their killing spree inspired the 1996 movie "The Ghost and the Darkness."
Scientists from the University of California at Santa Cruz have studied the lions' bones and fur. They determined in a study released Monday that the lions probably killed about 35, although they may have had as many as 72 humans or as few as four.

Considering that the count was made by an engineer, on the scene, rather than by scientists more than a hundred years removed, and also considering the likely hood that those lions had been processing deceased natives since cub hood, I'm going with the original number.

I'm thinking that could have been more than a little light.

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