New study finds that notorious Tsavo lions only ate 35 people
Maybe they should be called the man-snacking lions of Tsavo.
The notorious pair of Kenyan lions, part of a popular Field Museum display, did not kill and feast on 135 people working on and near an African railroad in 1898, new research has found.
Analysis of the lions' bones and pelts reveals they most likely ate only 35 humans, according to a "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" article released today.
"We didn't set out to debunk any stories," said Justin Yeakel, one of the article's researchers. "We used new analytical techniques to verify a really interesting historical episode and one that has become pretty famous."
The attacks on humans ended in 1898 when John H. Patterson, the railroad's lead British engineer, shot and killed the two lions in Kenya. Patterson claimed they had killed 135 people, though the Ugandan Railway Company put the number at 28.
John H. Patterson sold the pelts to the Field Museum for $5,000 in 1925.
Field Museum researcher Bruce Patterson, no relation to John H. Patterson, said the researchers were able to track the presence of a Carbon isotope from the stuffed lions to determine what kind of mammal they were eating.
"You are what you eat," said Bruce Patterson. "Just like salmon that eat mercury-tainted fish accumulate the metal in their bodies over time, so the chemical makeup of every animal's diet is reflected in the tissues of their bodies."
The 35 deaths is based on a statistical estimate of the probability of humans in the lions' diet, said Nathaniel Dominy, an associate anthropology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz who is co-author of the paper.
He said researchers are "95 percent confident that the lions ate as few as 4 or as many as 75 people total, with the highest probability falling out around 35 people."
Bruce Patterson said the Field Museum would be changing the exhibit to reflect the new information. He doubted John H. Patterson would be disappointed to learn his story was a bit of a tall tale.
John H. Patterson's son was a Field Museum curator, Patterson said, and the family was dedicated to truth above legend.
"They are accordingly highly scientific and let the facts speak for themselves," Bruce Patterson said.