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A Body Count for Two Man-Eating Lions
from ScienceNOW Daily News
For 9 months in 1898, two lions terrorized the southern Kenyan region of Tsavo, killing as many as 135 people by one account. Although the almost mythic tale has spawned three movies, people still debate the final death toll. Now, hair and bone samples from the famed lions have shed light on how many people they devoured and why they did it.
The attacks began in March as the British were building a railway bridge across the Tsavo River, which provided the only water to the parched landscape. The two lions crept into the workers' camp at night, snatching people from their tents, according to some accounts.
... Anthropologist Nathaniel Dominy and ecologist Justin Yeakel of the University of California, Santa Cruz, wanted to pin down the death toll. The scientists knew they could piece together the lions' diet from isotopes found in their hair and bone.
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