Although any
hungry lion will probably
attack any
human that wanders by, and most might take a
swipe at an obviously
weakened one, some
lions actually seem to almost seek out
human prey. Some of the more
publicized cases include the
Tsavo Man-Eaters and the
Mfuwe Maneater. (
Consequently, both
incidents have books written by the hunters who
slew the lions)
There has been some
speculation as to why
lions might
deliberately seek
human prey out, and
theories are abound, but some of the more common ones are:
* a man eating
lion is really a
demon.
* the
lion is part of a new
species.
Although neither of these ideas can be substantiated, what we do know is that the
Mfuwe and
Tsavo incidents did bear some
striking similarities to each other. The lions in both the
Tsavo and
Mfuwe incidents were all larger than normal, and lacked
manes and they seemed to suffer from
tooth decay.
Whether or not the lions were anything
unusual, noone can
definitively say, but it is generally a good idea to keep an eye out if you are near any big
predator.
This writeup is under the GNU Free Documentation License