Mesu Kyoushi: Injoku no Kyoushitsu 1

Do psychopathic animals exist?

Lots of good answers here of the variety, “animals cannot be psychopaths as they do not possess the requisite higher faculties and emotional mechanisms to exhibit something like pchycopathy.” But in the spirit that I assume the question was posed, let me introduce you to the Tsavo Lions. These are the Tsavo lions, or rather, their taxodermally preserved skins (FMNH 23970 and FMNH 23969), which can be viewed at the Field Museum of Natural History, in Chicago, Illinois.
These lions exhibited behaviors unusual for lions.
They were man-eaters with a body count somewhere between 35 and 135 humans.
This is unusal for lions.
Lions are generally leary of humans and especially larger groups of humans.
These were a pair of male lions that hunted as a team.
This is also unusual behavior among lions.
You’ve seen the nature specials; the male hunts alone, but mostly sits on his ass as his female enterouage, or pride, do the heavy lifting.
Depending on the account you want to believe, these animals also hunted for sport, something never seen in lions and rarely if ever in the animal kingdom.
A recent study suggests that the human remains of 35 victims ended up as food for the lions, but a hunt total of 135 was reported.
Was the 135 an exageration, or did the lions kill and drag off an even 100 humans for some reason other than to consume them? An additional “hunting for sport” argument can be made for the space of the confirmed attacks.
Some were spaced so close together temporally, that even a pair of full-grown lions would not have been motivated by hunger.
If you want to know more about the Tsavo Lions… The Tsavo Lions Wiki Smithsonian Magazine article The Field Museum Tsavo Lions page The book about encountering the Man-eaters while building a railway bridge over the Tsavo River, by John Henry Patterson The movie, “The Ghost and the Darkness”.
One of six films about the Tsavo Lions.
That’s right…six feature length motion pictures about this pair of lions.