The First Tsavo Man-Eater

The first Tsavo man-eater was one of the two maneless male lions who killed railway workers at the Tsavo River in Kenya in 1898. He is known today by his catalogue number at Chicago’s Field Museum, FMNH 23970, where he is the standing lion of the pair. He measured 9 feet 8 inches from nose to tail tip and took eight men to carry. He had a broken lower canine with an abscess at its root, and scientists believe the pain made it hard for him to kill large prey, which may be why he turned to people.

In March 1898 the British began building a bridge for the Uganda Railway over the Tsavo River in Kenya, with several thousand workers, most of them from India, camped along eight miles of line under the engineer Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson. For the next nine months two maneless male lions dragged workers from their tents at night. Thorn fences and fires did not stop them, hundreds of workers fled, and construction came to a halt. A 2024 DNA study confirmed the two were brothers.

Patterson hunted the lions for months from platforms and traps. He first hit this lion in the hind leg; the lion escaped, then returned at night and stalked Patterson, who shot him through the shoulder. He was found dead the next morning, 9 December 1898. A 2009 chemical study of his bones and hair estimated he had eaten the equivalent of about 24 people, more than twice as many as his brother.