(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Two of the most infamous man-eating lions in history are celebrating a milestone at the Field Museum.
The Tsavo Lions arrived at the museum in 1925. Since then, they have been visited by millions of people.
Scientist and Collections Manager Tom Naski was one of them. At 4 years old, he met the lions for the first time and he's been studying them for nearly 40 years now.
“I think they can last, you know, maybe another 100 years and, and inspire and fascinate visitors and children and adults alike.”
In 1898, these two lions killed and ate dozens of people in the Tsavo region of Kenya.
Naski says they've since learned about their lives and diets through their teeth. He even found their original den in Kenya in 1997 and published a study about their DNA.
“Looking at the mitochondrial of the hairs and the teeth, we keep learning more and more and more and it's just like… Maybe we can learn more about the, you know, that micropopulation. And, you know what I mean, is it, is it genetic diversity then similar or different to what it is today?”
Their story was told in the 1996 movie “The Ghost and the Darkness”.
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