Jaw Pain Drove The Tsavo Lions To Hunt People
During a nine-month period in 1898, two lions named "The Ghost" and "The Darkness" killed and ate an estimated 135 railroad workers in Kenya. The story was a worldwide sensation in the newspapers and even resulted in a Hollywood movie in the 1990s. What perplexed animal experts was why the lions had developed an insatiable taste for human flesh before they were finally shot dead. In the past, experts believed it was hunger but new research in a jaw study of lions suggest it was likely jaw pain. Researchers believe that jaw pain in the lions would have made hunting and killing their normal large prey incredibly painful and picking off humans was easier on the lions' jaws.
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