Talk:Tsavo lion

Congenetical Condition?
The lion in the picture frankly looks more like it has the mange. Is this really a subspecific characteristic, or a regional disease? CFLeon (talk) 22:09, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No it is not a disease. It is typical for many Tsavo lions. But the tsavo lion is not a special subspecies. In fact many lions of West and Central Africa (in some areas most of them) have no or very litlle manes. West and Central African lions recently turned out to be genetically different from lions in eastern and southern Africa. Both populations (West/Central <-> Southeastern) have a contact zone in northern East Africa. That would explain, why there are very different lions in East Africa, like the strong maned Serengeti lions and the Tsavo lions, which often have no manes at all. I believe, that the large maned lions from southern Africa did better on the open high altitude plains of the Serengeti, whereas the short maned lions (or at least the genes for the short mane) were in advantage in the hot shrubby lowlands of Tsavo. Here are images of lions in Pendjari, where almost all adult male lions are maneless as well. Last but not least I want to mention records of maneless lions also in southern Africa. It seems as if maneless lions do better under some habitat conditions, like hot climate and dense cover (in landscape with dense cover males may need to be good hunters until they have their own pride since scavenging is more difficult here than in open plains). The mane can protect in a fight, but it will most likely hinder a bit while hunting and it is for shure pretty hot under such a mane. ...by the way. I like maneless lions! Cheers, --Altaileopard (talk) 18:31, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
 * There is nevertheless something interesting about the genetics of the Tsavo lion, as mentioned in the section to which this page now redirects. It appears to be more closely related to the Transvaal lion of Southern Africa than to other subpopulations of the Eastern African lion, such as the Uganda lion. Leo1pard (talk) 09:04, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

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Leo1pard (talk) 07:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)

Why I merged Tsavo lion into East African lion
This article is fairly small, the area of Tsavo is in Eastern Africa, and East African lion had places where information could have been filled, such as the issue of man-eating. Leo1pard (talk) 07:20, 16 December 2017 (UTC)