The story of the lions of Tsavo, which is loosely told in The Ghost and The Darkness, is a real one. The lions were ultimately killed by a British officer named John Henry Patterson in 1898. It turns out the remains of the lions ended up at the Field Museum in Chicago. In an effort to separate legend from fact, a handful of scientists recently studied the teeth and hair of the lions.

From a piece at Sciencedaily:

By analyzing samples of the hair and bone of the lions, researchers were able to estimate that one lion likely ate 11 humans and the other consumed 24 people during the animals’ final nine months. Both lions were shot and killed in December 1898 by Lt. Col. John H. Patterson, a British officer and engineer hired to restore safety in the region. For years after, Patterson, who gained great notoriety for the feat, claimed the lions had killed 135 people — far more than the Ugandan Railway Company’s estimate of 28 victims.

“This has been a historical puzzle for years, and the discrepancy is now finally being addressed,” said Nathaniel J. Dominy, an associate professor of anthropology at UCSC. “We can imagine that the railroad company might have had reasons to want to minimize the number of victims, and Patterson might have had reasons to inflate the number. So who do you trust? We’re removing all those factors and getting down to data.”

The actual study is available here.