7 ms·
19th century lions preyed on humans and giraffes
- hprotagonist 2y agoi feel that this finding is not particular to a specific century.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoKnowing this is limited to two specific lion carcasses from 1898.
- card_zero 2y agoNo it isn't? Lions continue to eat humans and giraffes.
- AnimalMuppet 2y agoAll right, apparently I worded that badly. The evidence presented in the article is limited to two carcasses from 1898. So the headline should be parsed as "these two specific 19th century lions preyed on humans and giraffes". And my comment should be parsed as "what we know from this evidence is limited to two specific lion carcasses from 1898".
- AStonesThrow 2y agoRead the Book of Daniel sometime.
- Aardwolf 2y agoSeems like HN's title rewrite did a bad job in this case, it should be "These 19th century lions ..." or "Two 19th century lions ..."
- bpodgursky 2y agoNote the suspicious source of the human MT DNA discovered (https://x.com/ShaiCarmi/status/1845913336367501668 https://x.com/ShaiCarmi/status/1845913336367501668). K2a2a1, most common in Ashkenazi Jews and is not even slightly expected here: > The authors go on to give a lengthy explanation of why they did not study the ancestry of that person. > I will say (politely) that imo the explanation is not very convincing. > So who's hair is it? > * I can't see any obvious mention of a Jewish person working in the construction site, but maybe. > * Maybe it was a non-Jewish European, among those very few carrying the haplogroup. > * But I think it's most likely just contamination from a lab person (To be clear - the lion is real and definitely did eat humans. The DNA finding is just suspicious.) Edit: I don't like to appeal to authority but this is one of the world's leading statistical geneticists, if you downvote instinctively, look deep and investigate your priors.
- sandworm101 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people Given the close contacts over millennia, i would be more surprised if there were not any DNA links.
- card_zero 2y agoSeems the workers were mostly from India anyway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsavo_Man-Eaters So maybe somebody from Madras? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_India
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- teddyh 2y agoGiraffes? This explains why lions can jump 36 feet.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoI can't help but think that all they need to do is trip them up, that's a long way to fall.
- teddyh 2y agoI was actually thinking of <https://imgur.com/gFnCf6D https://imgur.com/gFnCf6D>.
- rusticpenn 2y agoThey can kill a fully grown Lion with a kick
- sys32768 2y agoReminds me of this BBC scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1sDCTHVBmA&t=73s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1sDCTHVBmA&t=73s
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- adrian_b 2y agoGiraffes are a difficult prey, so not many lions attempt to hunt them. For those who do this, it is a team action. Many lionesses are necessary to tire the giraffe and reduce its possibilities of movement. After the lionesses have tired the giraffe, a big male lion is required to kill it, by jumping on giraffe's back, then biting and holding its throat, to suffocate it. Lions use the same method for all big and dangerous prey. Smaller prey is hunted only by the lionesses, but big prey like buffaloes, giraffes or baby elephants is first harassed by the lionesses and later, when tired enough, it is killed by the male through suffocation.
- 2y ago
- cryptos 2y agoThis historic story has even inspired a movie with Michael Douglas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_and_the_Darkness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ghost_and_the_Darkness
- JohnMakin 2y agoOne of the more disturbing things I've observed about lion predation is that they will eat their prey while it is still alive, they don't always bother killing it first. There's videos of predations on other animals youtube, I wouldn't recommend watching them if you are squeamish.
- sandworm101 2y agoThat is true of many if not most predators.
- JohnMakin 2y agoYes, but not many predators are known for preying on humans, which is why it is disturbing to me.
- nerdponx 2y agoThere's a myth floating around among certain "crunchy hippie" types that predation in nature is relatively humane and usually results in a quick kill. That myth could be dispelled easily by watching just about any wildlife video of course. Life survives because of its tremendous capacity to endure suffering beyond imagination. Life goes on in spite of nature. "Mother nature" is cruel and uncaring. Our survival is all but guaranteed, but our ability to avoid horror and misery hangs in a tenuous balance that we had best strive to preserve.
- hackable_sand 2y agoWhat do you call someone who irrationally fears nature?
- card_zero 2y agoLike an irrational fear of deadly predators?
- hackable_sand 2y ago
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y agoSo, after DNA analysis, scientists discover than man-eating lions were eating humans! Who'd have guessed! I grew up reading books about man eating lions/tigers and the men who hunted them like Jim Corbett. The bad teeth of the lion shown seems typical - they normally only prey on humans as a last resort when they are old/weak, but are creatures of habit and will continue once started. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Corbett https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Corbett Of course humans are still on the menu today. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29987187 https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29987187
- ilrwbwrkhv 2y agoIt's so cool to see humans be hunted. Fear of the monster outside, makes humans care for each other more. Now everything is safer, and we fight between ourselves.
- FredPret 2y agoYou first
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- OJFord 2y ago> So, after DNA analysis, scientists discover than man-eating lions were eating humans! Who'd have guessed! The point seems to be developing novel analysis, not so much interest in what these particular lions ate, which was documented anyway. I wrote a bit longer here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41850781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41850781
- cynicalpeace 2y agoWhere exactly do you think we lie on the food chain? Some say our trophic level is similar to pigs or anchovies since we're omnivores. Others say we're obviously at the top due to our intelligence. I ask this question not as a way to debate jargon, but rather to think about our primeval place amongst other animals. Where do our survival instincts kick in? Why is my son always trying to play-flee from me?
- marcosdumay 2y ago"Food chain" is an unreasonable simplification destined to teach some concepts, and not something that exists and can be reasoned about. (In fact, it's mostly not even used to teach anymore, because it wasn't helpful even for that.)
- cynicalpeace 2y ago"not as a way to debate jargon, but rather to think about our primeval place amongst other animals"
- marcosdumay 2y ago"Not to debate jargon, but how does that completely artificial jargon-only concept fits on the natural world?" That's not a question that can be answered.
- cynicalpeace 2y agoWhere does that quote come from? I also asked several questions.
- HPsquared 2y agoIt's not a linear thing. It's a network, probably not even acyclic.
- _yb2s 2y agoIt's all situational- any predator will eat another one when it has the advantage. No animal comes close to equaling humans as predators at the top of our game as hunters- e.g. young healthy adults working together as a team with well made weapons, a coordinated strategy, local knowledge, and hard won experience. But as this article shows, there are plenty of situations where these advantages don't apply. For the most part, predators generally dislike trying to eat each other unless all other options are exhausted, as it is much safer and easier to go after things that have less of a chance of turning the tables on you. I am a freediver that dives mostly in a place with a lot of white sharks, and contrary to popular stereotypes, they're actually quite afraid of, and keep their distance from humans. Rare attacks seem to occur when there is some situation that visually confuses them, and they mistake us for one of their common prey animals.
- begueradj 2y agoWhen hungry, any carnivore capable of attacking a human will do it.
- adrian_b 2y agoFortunately, for most carnivores it is difficult to assess whether they are capable of attacking a human or not, so they typically are even more afraid of humans than humans are afraid of them. Therefore a very small fraction of the carnivores that are capable of attacking a human will actually do it, even when hungry. In general, all animals in the regions where humans existed had an exaggerate fear of humans in comparison with their fear of any other animals. Only in the regions not yet reached by humans, like various islands, the animals did not fear humans at their first arrival, so both easy hunting for humans and attacks from carnivores were more likely. Nowadays, when most humans are no longer hunters, this has changed and there are many regions where the animals have become accustomed with human presence, which may also increase the likelihood of a carnivore attempting an attack when there is no other food.
- zeven7 2y agoOn the other hand, my house cat tries (and fails) to kill me daily.
- Jensson 2y ago> In general, all animals in the regions where humans existed had an exaggerate fear of humans Not African animals, humans didn't really tame the land there like they did in other areas. You see this with hippos etc, they aren't afraid of humans yet. Bet they will be in a few centuries.
- 1propionyl 2y agoMy cats understand I can (somehow) control their automatic feeder from my phone and when hungry pester me until I pull out my phone and run over as soon as they see the reflection of the splash screen from the feeder app on my face. They physically defeated the previous few feeders. Unable to do so with this one, they've doubled down on social engineering. Nature, uh, finds a way.
- zeven7 2y agoThat cavity looks really painful. It’s crazy to think of all the ailments wild animals just have to deal with their whole lives (if it’s not something that’s going to kill them quickly).
- 11235813213455 2y agonot just animals, trees have holes and stuff slowly damaging them (parasites gets in), they resist until they can't
- standardUser 2y agoHumans too, for the most part, until very recently.
- OJFord 2y agoThe title's kind of confusing bait; the actual interest seems to be: > The new findings are an important expansion of the kinds of data that can be extracted from skulls and hairs from the past, the researchers said. > "Now we know that we can reconstruct complete mitochondrial genomes from single hair fragments from lions that are more than 100 years old," de Flamingh said. i.e. they had the skulls along with the written record of the attack and their shooting, other fauna in the area, etc. and so were able to do the novel hair analysis and then verify it against that.