In 1898 , a pair of lion repeatedly raid the tents of an tenting in Kenya , killing at least 28 mass . The notorious " Tsavo military personnel - feeder ” were eventually shot and their corpse put on display at the Field Museum Of Natural History in Chicago , and now a fresh genomic subject has revealed the grim story their teeth have to recount .
The Tsavo Lion – commemorate in the 1996 Michael Douglas / Val Kilmer movieThe Ghost and the Darkness – may have been dead for well over a century , but we ’re still discover from them and , more specifically , the pack pilus squished inside their mouth bones ( interestingly , bad teeth may explainwhy some list towards eating peoplemore than others ) . It ’s a great example of how new technology can bring home the bacon fresh insight into cold cases , and add to the already rich roster of habit we have for museum specimens .
“ As biotechnology advance , there are unexpected sources of knowledge , in this suit genomics , that can be used to inform about the past , ” say Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign in astatement . “ Our results inform on the ecology and diet of lions in the past as well as on the impacts of colonization on life story and land in this region of Africa . ”
Genomic research into the Tsavo lions confirmed that they were likely siblings and like these lions living today in the Tsavo region, they were maneless.Image credit: Michael Jeffords and Susan Post
Malhi and colleague go under out to introduce a method acting that would enable them to draw out and examine the DNA stored within these haircloth samples , and in doing so , reconstruct the dieting of these infamous lion . Their investigations take a deep dive into lilliputian dental injury on their canines where reveal cavities contained the whisker of their prey that had built up over fourth dimension .
They then press out DNA from case-by-case hair dig , and while it was n’t unadulterated , it was enough to paint a picture of the coinage that were a part of their dieting . The results showed that their “ Isle of Man - feeder ” status was well earned , as human DNA was detected along with that of giraffes , oryx , waterbucks , wildebeest , and zebra .
Their man - eater ways were ill-famed , but the fact that wildebeest was on the menu was quite a surprisal . Why ? Because wildebeest would not have been local .
“ It suggests that the Tsavo lions may have either traveled farther than antecedently believed , or that wildebeest were present in the Tsavo part during that clock time , ” said Alida de Flamingh , also at the University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign . “ The close grazing area for wildebeest was over 50 miles [ 80 kilometre ] from where the lions were killed in 1898 at the Tsavo - Athi confluence . ”
The research worker are n’t done with the Tsavo lions just yet . The next step is to go into even smashing particular with the compacted hair samples , with Bob Hope they may be able to separate out their dietary preferences base on the lions ’ eld . Doing so does n’t just show the potential of genomic research , but could also provide newfangled insights into historic human - Panthera leo conflicts that could even be applied to specimens sometime than the Tsavo lions .
“ This methodology can potentially be used on hair from broken teeth of more ancient carnivores from hundred to M of age ago , ” Malhi added . “ [ It ] opens up a new avenue of interrogation into the past tense . ”
The work is published in the journalCurrent Biology .
