BROWSE SIGHTINGS ⋅ VIEW GALLERY ⋅ WATCH VIRTUAL SAFARIS⋅ TRAVEL TO SEE LION ⋅ LEARN MORE
The sound of a lion’s roar nearby is heart-stopping, an iconic and primal resonance that permeates the memory of any such encounter with one of these super predators – the largest of African carnivores. So powerful are these cats that they are obliged to spend most of their lives resting – often nearly comatose, always in close proximity of one another – to recuperate the extensive energy spent when they are active. But don’t be fooled, one hint of disturbance – or food – and they’re up and in full-blown lion mode in a moment.
These impressive cats (the only social cats on the savanna) dominate the predator hierarchy because of their size and cooperative nature. They steal food from other predators and kill them and their offspring as opportunity presents. Hyenas are especially maligned, but only prove to be real competition if they exist in significantly greater numbers, and even a clan of hyenas don’t stand too much chance against a pride if male lions are in the mix. Elephants chase and kill lions to protect their young, as will herds of buffalo. But, in a turn of ecological pay-back, the kills that lions make provision many, including hyena, jackal and vultures who scavenge the often ample leftovers.
Join safari guide, Kris “Harri” Harrison as she travels to &BEYOND’s magnificent wildlife destinations and learns about the amazing lives of the lions that inhabit them.
A pride of
lions
Adapted from Game Ranger in your Backpack © Megan Emmett
Mature male lions have huge manes of hair over their necks and shoulders that vary from blonde to black. This makes them look large and impressive to contenders and to females.
When male lions fight, they do so head-to-head, raking each other with their claws. The dense mane protects the neck from a fatal blow. Males reach full maturity at seven years old, weathering a series of mohawk-like styles until this point when their manes fill out properly.
A massive skull of over 3 kg (7 lb) powers the lower jaw via strong muscles. Long, sharp canines are used to grasp and kill prey and the carnassial shear is very well developed.
This is made up of the fourth upper premolar and first lower molar. The carnassials are flattened and articulate against each other, with a scissor-like blade action to cut through meat. A lion’s tongue is exceptionally rough. Just through licking, the tongue can separate meat from bone.
Lions have black tips to their tails and black behind their ears. These are ‘follow me’ signs. The black tail is at exactly the right height for a cub to follow a female through tall grass.
Cats express their moods with their tails and ears, and so having these areas highlighted is valuable for communication and coordination during hunts and social interactions. While the black is obvious from behind, from the front they remain completely tawny and camouflaged.
Lions have protractile claws that can be pushed out by muscle contractions when there is need to fight or hunt, but they relax back into a protective sheath when not in use.
This keeps them from becoming blunt while the cat moves around. There is a small claw on a lion’s wrist which is higher than the other claws and this is called a dewclaw. The dewclaw is used when pouncing on prey to secure it as it adds to the lion’s grip.
Forward-facing eyes effect binocular vision that helps gauge depth and distance. Reflective retinal membranes and pale marks below the eyes assist with exceptional low-light vision.
Large nasal canals enhance breathing during hunts and tactile whiskers form unique patterns in each cat. Lions roar very loudly due to a suspensorium, or modified “voice box”, suspended via cartilage (not bone) at the top of the windpipe, and that vibrates when lions call, projecting sound further.
Lions are expert stalkers, using the barest of cover to get close to prey, holding head and body close to the ground. They are extremely patient to get as close as possible before the chase.
They attack the rump or shoulders and their sheer weight causes the prey to fall at which time it is grabbed by the throat or muzzle. Lions are opportunistic and resourceful eating mostly medium to large antelope but including anything from a mouse to an elephant. They are not averse to scavenging. Females do most of the hunting but males assist with larger kills and are adept hunters in their own right. Males are first to eat, often taking over the entire carcass. The females tolerate this because the males are larger and afford the females protection by defending territory. Lions gorge themselves when they feed leaving them almost immovable, but food passes through their guts quickly.
Male lions defend territories that typically overlap with a number of different, mutually exclusive female territories. Males (2-5) operate in partnerships known as a coalitions.
Coalitions are often made up of brothers, but not always so. Collectively, they pose a stronger force against their chief competition, hyenas, and can defend a larger territory, and protect more females. They may split up to do patrols but rejoin as necessity requires. Much posturing and advertising ensures that they avoid confrontation and hence, the risk of injury. They advertise through roaring and scent-marking. Lions mark their territories by urine-spraying bushes and other obvious objects. They defecate conspicuously and scrape with their feet on the ground where they have urinated, transferring the scent to their feet to pass on while they patrol their boundaries. They also mark bushes with cheek and body gland secretions, rubbing as they pass by.
Lions are extremely lethargic for the majority of their lives, spending about twenty hours a day resting. This is necessary to recuperate from the intense periods they spend patrolling and hunting.
Although lions may seem comatose at times, they are typically alert and can be spurred to action in seconds. After a day’s resting and before they get active for the evening, a pride of lions will engage in contagious behaviour including yawning, grooming, defecating, urinating and communal roaring. This creates pride cohesion. Lions are the only social cats in the bush, a strategy that means they can kill bigger animals, improving the chance of a successful kill, and the survival of their young through cooperation. They roar to communicate, usually at night when sound carries further (> 7 km or 4 mi). They recognise and respond individually. Lions also moan, purr, growl, snarl and the cubs meow.
Lions are super-predators and dominate the predator hierarchy, stealing from other predators and mutually killing each others’ cubs. They may even kill smaller carnivores simply as food.
They follow predators or vultures to kill sites, steal food, including putrid meat, and ambush animals by lying in wait at isolated waterholes. They may dig warthogs out of their burrows or pick off antelope lying up in the grass. Lions play the ecologically imperative role of ridding populations of their sick and weak. Their only real competition is hyena but only if these occur in significantly greater numbers, and even a clan of hyenas doesn’t stand too much chance against a pride if males are present. Elephants chase and may kill lions to protect their young as will herds of buffalo. The kills that lions make are attended by hyena, jackal and vultures who will attempt to scavenge the leftovers.
All the lionesses in a pride are related and remain within the pride for life. They may split up into subgroups and operate in different parts of their territory but will join up from time to time.
Young males are ousted from the pride in their third year and they must lead a nomadic lifestyle, keeping a low profile until they are able to contend for a territory of their own from about the age of five. They are fully mature at seven years old, at which time their manes are also fully developed. After tenure of a territory, ousted older males also resort to a nomadic lifestyle and are often killed or die from lack of pride support by around ten years old.
Mating in lions is a very intense affair. A pair mates every 20 minutes for an average of 4 days and nights, with each bout lasting one minute. This is due to the fact that lions have a low fertility rate.
A very small percentage of mating results in conception. In fact, for every cub reaching one year old, the parents would have mated 3000 times. The protracted copulations serve two functions. Firstly, they stimulate the female to ovulate, and secondly, they provide the opportunity to confuse paternity. The male that begins mating with a female may become so exhausted by day three or four that another of the coalition members will take over. Since both believe the cubs to be theirs, both have a vested interest in protecting the offspring. Although females often elicit mating by presenting their rumps (lordosis) to a male, by the end of a bout, they appear irritable, turning to swat the male with their paw as he extracts. This is due to the fact that male lion’s have barbed penises and the extraction is extremely painful. The neck-biting and snarling that takes place during mating is ritualised. Males determine that a female is in oestrus (ready to mate) by flehmen – pulling back the top lip in a grimace to to force steroid hormones from urine into the chemo-receptive Organ of Jacobsen located on the palate.
Foreign males that move into a territory will kill all the cubs in a pride under one year old. Infanticide causes the females to come into heat quickly so that the males can mate with them.
Males can then spend their tenure as the territorial coalition defending their own offspring. Interestingly, the females don’t conceive immediately and the males need to establish themselves before they will. This mechanism prevents wasted reproductive energy as should the new males be displaced soon after take over, a similar process will occur and the females will again loose their cubs.
Lion cubs are born blind and weak (altricial). The gestation period is very quick since lionesses need to hunt in order to survive and would be disadvantaged if pregnant for protracted periods.
As a result, the cubs are underdeveloped at birth and need to be kept in hiding while their strength grows enough to join the pride and hold their own. This is the converse to their prey. Lionesses often synchronise their breeding. This is useful, as all the mothers will then mutually suckle each others cubs. However, if there are very new cubs in a pride as well as cubs three months old or more, the mother of the younger cubs will keep her offspring away from the pride for longer than the usual 6 weeks. This is because the older cubs are stronger and have easier access to the milk on offer to the exclusion of the smaller cubs.
There is something about seeing lions running free that excites you… it’s like you’re liberated by seeing them
[Michael Douglas]