This is the true story of two lions, who created havoc in 1898 when the British camped by the Tsavo River to build a bridge. The country at that time of the year was facing a severe drought and this river was the only source of water.
Just imagine the ghastly scenario. Workers in the Kenyan outback retire after a hard day's work and are soon deep in sleep in their tents.
In the dead of the night, as the workers sleep, a lion appears out of nowhere inside the camp. It enters a tent and clutches one of the workers in its strong jaws and leaves with a struggling and screaming man.
According to the New Daily, it was not one or two people that the two rampaging lions managed to kill and eat, but an unnerving total of 35 people, that too, just over a period of nine months! This 120-year-old mystery had not only been a subject of several scientific investigations but have inspired three Hollywood movies too.
The two lions were finally gunned down after many failed attempts at Christmas by Colonel John Patterson. The colonel, along with other white people involved in the hunt, unabashedly promoted this feat by publishing a book in 1907, recounting the lion hunting tale in which he claimed the lions killed 28 people.
Scientific investigations carried out by two scientists from the University of California in 2009 on the lions' hair and bone revealed that humans constituted 30 percent of their diet. This analysis put the human death toll at 35.
Why this story has resurfaced is because there has been a breakthrough of sorts as to why the two lions chose humans over their natural prey. The answer turned out to be ridiculously simple: because the lions had bad teeth that forced them to seek softer human flesh!
Science Daily reported Larisa DeSantis, assistant professor of earth and environmental studies at Vanderbilt University, as saying, "Our data suggest that these man-eating lions didn't completely consume the carcasses of their human or animal prey. Instead, people appear to have supplemented their already diverse diet."
But there is no doubt that the bad teeth did bring humans on the lions' menu. Of course, the Kenyan drought and the wiping out of lion's natural prey, buffalo and wildebeests, due to a European-introduced virus, rinderpest, also contributed to the lions turning man-eaters.
