Did you know a lion that is bigger than an African lion, with a body length of nearly 4 meters, and can even eat mammoths?
As the king of all beasts, lions have always been the absolute overlords of the steppe, not only the only cats that can really roar, but also the only cats that live in groups as the norm, their eyesight is 6 times stronger than that of humans, they are at the top of the food chain, and they can even hunt and kill their own kind, so what breed of lion is the most terrifying?
The first: Katanga lion
Katanga lion is also called Kalahari lion, Angolan lion, is a subspecies of African lion, its heat tolerance and thirst tolerance is the best among lions, it is also one of the largest surviving lion subspecies, the average body length of adult wild male lions can reach more than 2 meters, plus the tail is close to 3 meters, weighing about 200 kg, the current largest field record is a male lion named Castor, it weighs 272 kg.
The body of the Katanga lion is very strong, the claws are wide and sharp, it can play a huge role in hunting, compared with some African lions in other regions, its body frame is more robust and light, the mane is very strong, in addition to the head and neck, the male lion has a thick mane on the back, chest, and even the front legs.
Both male and female, The Katanga lion has a black ball-shaped bundle of hairs on its tail and a bone bag hidden inside, which can help them repel mosquitoes, like a black fluffy mass.
They work in teams like other lions, preying on ungulates such as zebras, warthogs, South African swordbeests, etc., using sharp claws and razor-like split teeth, and many prey cannot escape their round-up.
Sometimes, though, they hunt small animals like hares alone, so they prey on more than other African lions. They also like to hunt at night, not only to avoid the hot sun during the day, but also to hide their tracks at night, improving the success rate of predation.
The second: the Barbary Lion
The Barbary lion, also known as the North African lion, is the first of the three giants of North African carnivores and the lion closest to the Asiatic lion.
Male lions can reach 2 m 8 in length and 230 kg in weight, while females are smaller but can also grow up to 2 m 5.
Their coat color is gray, and their mane is spread over the top of the head, neck, back, and abdomen, and even extends to the inside of the thigh, looking very powerful, it can be said that it retains a considerable number of traces of the ancestors of the Asiatic lion group, and the combat effectiveness is also extraordinary.
There was once a Barbary lion named Juno, who killed 13 tigers in his lifetime, which was very ferocious, and even the most famous animal trainer, Clyde Betty, suffered countless injuries in the process of taming it.
In 1000 BC, because pirates on the Barbary coast liked to attack ships in the Mediterranean and north Atlantic, they abducted a large number of residents as slaves and took some Christians to feed the Barbary lions. The Barbary Lion thus earned the title of "Enemy of Mankind".
However, such mighty lions were treated cruelly in the days of the Roman Empire, and they were taken prisoner and forced to become slaves in their arenas, allowing them to perform so-called fighting performances with gladiators.
Wild lions are certainly not so easy to tame, and when they enter the huge gladiatorial arena from the dark dungeon where they are imprisoned, and see the provocative gladiators in front of them, the bloodiness of the Barbary lions is aroused and they begin to bite people like crazy, and the scene is very bloody.
In the end, more than 400 male lions all fell to the ground and died, but the history books do not record how many hundreds of gladiators with swords and spears were killed and injured in the end, and such a cruel beast performance competition lasted for five or six hundred years, which can be said to be a fatal blow to the Barbary lion population.
It wasn't until 1922, after the last wild Barbary lion fell under the gun of a farmer, that the wild Barbary lion was extinct, and the only surviving in the zoo today are some hybrid lions of Barbary lion ancestry.
The third: the Kruger lion
The Kruger lion, also known as the Transvaal lion, the South African lion, is a lion that mainly lives in semi-desert areas and tropical sparse grasslands, the male lion plus tail length can exceed 3 meters, weight can reach 250 kg, and the female lion can also grow to 2 meters 75, weighing 180 kg, is the largest lion in the existing lion, and the only lion with a white variant.
Their mane color also gradually turns black with age, and the young lion's mane is golden, and the more stable and mature, the darker the mane color. They have very sharp eyesight and hearing, as well as a sense of smell, and strong limbs.
They usually accelerate within 30 meters of the prey to run close to the prey, and then use their hind legs to swoop forward, control them with their grasping forelimbs, and then use the powerful chin (kē), as well as developed canine teeth and split teeth, bite the prey's mouth, nose or throat, so that they suffocate to death, this tactic also allows them to hunt wildebeest, wild boar, giraffe, buffalo and other large animals to meet the needs of male lions 7 kg of meat per day, female lions 5 kg of meat. The lions have a one-quarter success rate and are absolutely outstanding among wild animals.
Moreover, their ferocious strength is not only in hunting, such as the very famous Bad Boy Lion Alliance, which is a group of 6 single male lions, who have repeatedly attacked several local lion groups, causing heavy casualties to 5 lion groups.
The Castleton Lion Group has been reduced from 22 to 6 members, and the 10 members of the Semvania Lion Group have all been killed or even eaten by them. In just 1 year, they reduced the number of lions in the Sabison Reserve by 40%.
The fourth type: cave lions
The cave lion, also known as the cave lion, is also an extinct cat, it is a Pleistocene period of the big cat fossil lion evolved from the lion, once lived in the northern and central Eurasian continent 300,000-100,000 years ago in the grasslands, tundra, desert and semi-desert areas, from their distribution can be known, they are extremely adaptable, but do not like snow or forest.
Their skulls are very large, the fossils found so far are even 48 cm long, and the largest Siberian tiger skull is only 38 cm, which shows the size of the cave lion, according to the fossil inference, the largest male lion can reach 3 meters 8 in length, shoulder height 1 meter 4, the average weight of 300 kilograms or so, some even more than 400 kilograms, thick limbs, larger than all the lions now, is the largest wild cat ever.
They mainly feed on European wild horses, camels, and mammoth cubs, but the place is so large, food is certainly not enough, so cave lions are likely not to live in groups, or live in large groups, and their sociality is relatively weak, and their mane also proves this.
According to some archaeological discoveries of Stone Age petroglyphs and carvings, it can be seen that the ring-shaped mane on the male cave lion is not as long as that of modern lions, and the mane is the second sexual characteristic of the lion, which does not highlight that it does not need to achieve unity or breed offspring, that is to say, the cave lion does not need to fight in large groups to capture those large prey, which is very fierce.
However, with the extinction of many herbivores and the mass hunting of humans, the cave lion has become extinct.
Fifth: The American Lion
The cougar is a giant animal that lived in North America during the Ice Age, and is a lion that evolved from northern Asia, crossing the Bailing Continental Bridge and entering the North American continent after the Cave Lion passed the Ice Age, also known as the brutal lion.
Based on a 42-centimeter skull unearthed, scientists have calculated the body length, height and weight of the american lion, which is close to 4 meters long and more than 1 meter tall, but it can stand up more than 2 meters, which is very powerful.
Its size ranked second among the many carnivores on the North American continent at that time, only smaller than the giant short-faced bear, the average weight of male lions was about 350 kilograms, but the maximum could reach 470 kilograms, heavier than saber-toothed tigers, and even female lions had more than 300 kilograms, far from being comparable to modern lions.
And its split teeth are up to 40 centimeters long, the skull is muscular, the bite force is amazing 1600 kg, and the bite force of the world's largest crocodile bay crocodile is comparable, one bite can directly bite off the neck of the prey, even if it weighs 1000 kg, the skin is thick, the horns are sharp, and the American bison can not withstand the American lion's unique trick of locking the throat with its teeth and sharp claws, so the bison is often the plate of the Lion of Americas, and even some small mammoths are on their menus.
And because of the vast environment of the North American grassland, the American lion has evolved slender limbs, which makes them not only have great strength, but also a very strong running speed, according to the anatomical structure of the American lion, they can be as fast as 70 kilometers per hour when chasing prey, and their endurance is excellent, which is one of the reasons why african bison are difficult to escape its pursuit.
Secondly, according to the individual Cougar excavated in the asphalt pit near Los Angeles, it can be found that their male and female ratios are equal, and the group structure of a male lion and several female lions is very different today, so many scholars believe that although the American lion also lives in groups, it is a lion that the husband and wife hunt cooperatively.
In the Arctic region, the American lion is a top predator, the lethality is almost invincible, even if the blade-toothed tiger is on the American lion, it may not be able to have the upper hand, because the canine teeth of the blade-toothed tiger are too long, the jaw is degraded, and the bite force is not as good as that of the American lion, so it is often in the downwind with the American lion, and the ferocious character of the American lion, even if it is on the short-faced bear that stands up nearly 5 meters, it is not afraid.
If such a lion still exists, it is not yet known who is the hegemon of one side.