In 1898, a pair of male lions turned the Tsavo region of Kenya into their own human hunting ground for several months, killing many construction workers building the Kenya-Uganda railway. A team of scientists has now identified exactly what type of prey the so-called “Tsavo Man-Eaters” fed on, based on DNA analysis of hairs collected from the lions' teeth, according to a recent paper published in the journal Current Biology . They found evidence of several species the lions had consumed, including humans.
The British began construction of a railway bridge over the Tsavo River in March 1898, with Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson leading the project. But just days after Patterson arrived on the scene, workers began disappearing or being murdered. The culprits: two manless male lions, so emboldened that they often dragged workers out of their tents at night to eat them. At their height, they murdered workers almost daily – including an attack on the district officer, who narrowly escaped with claw lacerations in his back. (His assistant, however, was killed.)
Patterson finally managed to shoot and kill one of the lions on December 9 and the second twenty days later. The lion skins decorated the Patterson home as rugs for 25 years before being sold to Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History in 1924. The skins were restored and used to reconstruct the lions, which are now on permanent display at the museum along with their skulls.
Story of the teeth
The Tsavo man-eaters naturally fascinated scientists, although the exact number of people they killed and/or consumed is still a matter of debate. Estimates range from 28 to 31 victims to 100 or more, with a 2009 study analyzing the isotopic characteristics of lion bone collagen and hair keratin, favoring the lower range.
