Source: Futility Closet
In 1898, two lions descended on a company of railway workers in British East Africa. For nine months they terrorized the camp, carrying off a new victim every few days, as engineer John Patterson struggled to stop them. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll track the “man-eaters of Tsavo” and learn what modern science has discovered about their motivations.
We’ll also consider more uses for two cars and puzzle over some prolific penguins.
Intro:
MIT drops a piano off a building every year.
French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée proposed honoring Isaac Newton with a sarcophagus inside a 500-foot globe.
Sources for our feature on the Tsavo man-eaters:
John Henry Patterson, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, 1907.
J.H. Patterson, “The Man-Eaters of Tsavo: The Lions That Stopped a Railway,” Wide World Magazine 10:55 (October 1902), 3-12; 10:56 (November 1902), 112-118.
J.H. Patterson, “The Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo,” Field Museum of Natural History, 1926.
Philip Caputo, Ghosts of Tsavo, 2002.
Bruce D. Patterson, The Lions of Tsavo, 2004.
Julian C. Kerbis Peterhans and Thomas Patrick Gnoske, “The Science of ‘Man-Eating’ Among Lions Panthera leo With a Reconstruction of the Natural History of the ‘Man-Eaters of Tsavo,’” Journal of East African Natural History 90:1 (2001), 1-41.
T.P. Gnoske, G.G. Celesia, and J.C. Kerbis Peterhans, “Dissociation Between Mane Development and Sexual Maturity in Lions (Panthera leo): Solution to the Tsavo Riddle?” Journal of Zoology 270:4 (2006), 551-560.
Justin D. Yeakel, et al., “Cooperation and Individuality Among Man-Eating Lions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:45 (2009), 19040-19043.
Bruce D. Patterson, et al., “Livestock Predation by Lions (Panthera leo) and Other Carnivores on Ranches Neighboring Tsavo National Parks, Kenya,” Biological Conservation 119:4 (2004), 507-516.
Bruce D. Patterson, “On the Nature and Significance of Variability in Lions (Panthera leo),” Evolutionary Biology 34:1-2 (2007), 55-60.
Bruce D. Patterson, Ellis J. Neiburger, Samuel M. Kasiki, “Tooth Breakage and Dental Disease as Causes of Carnivore-Human Conflicts,” Journal of Mammalogy 84:1…
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