Case file · Folklore / legend
The man-eaters of Tsavo
Between March and December 1898 two maneless lions killed many workers building the Uganda Railway bridge over the Tsavo River, until engineer John Henry Patterson shot them.
1898 CE · -2.99, 38.47 · status: official
The account
The workers, many from British India, came to believe the lions were demons or the spirits of dead chiefs angry at the railway; some deserted, halting work. Patterson's 1907 book claimed 135 victims, and the lions were later called 'the Ghost and the Darkness'. Their skins and skulls are in the Field Museum in Chicago.
The sceptical view
A 2009 isotope study of hair and bone suggested the two lions ate about 35 people between them, far fewer than Patterson's figure. Dental problems and a shortage of prey may explain why they turned to people.