Human lions: family tradition

2003/01/27 Elhuyar Zientzia

• Zoologia

Human lions are more common than they imagined, according to researchers at the Chicago Biology Museum. According to them, in Leonese families it is transmitted from generation to generation.

According to legend, in the 1890s a couple of lions ate 135 workers who were making the railroad in the Kenyan region of Tsavo. Analyzing the data, it seems that about 28 workers were consumed. Much, in any case.

In the same study, lions have seen in that region that human food is relatively common, at least in the 19th century. from the beginning of the century to the Second World War.

The shortage of conventional prey, the availability of human bodies (e.g., pests) or any other factor that makes hunting difficult can cause a lion to start eating humans. And if you get used to it, you learn from each other.

These and other data will be published in the Journal of East African Natural History 2001.

However, we must not forget that the human being lives within nature and it should not surprise us that the great predators see it as prey.