Lion: Kings and Queens of the Jungle
Renowned
for its majesty and nicknamed the King of the
Jungle, the lion is a
symbol of power, is king
of beast, a magnificent animal, and possesses both beauty and strength. They have captured our
imaginations for centuries. Stars of movies and
characters in books. The word also has similar
meaning in our vocabulary. If you call someone
lionhearted, you’re describing a courageous and
brave person. If you lionize someone, you treat
that person with great interest or importance.
Lions are the only cats that live in gro-ups, which
are called prides. Prides are family units that
may include up to three males, a dozen or more
females, as well as their young. Living in a
pride makes life easier. Hunting as a group
means there is a better chance they will have
food when they need it, and it is less likely
that they will get injured while hunting. Lions
are an exception to the usual solitary existence
of most wild cat species. It has developed a
social system based on teamwork, division of
labor and an extended but closed family unit.
The average pride may have 2 or 3 territorial
males. These are usually brothers or pride mates
who have formed a coalition to protect their
females. Because a nursing lioness will come
into heat a few weeks after the loss of cubs,
males with newly won prides will often kill
existing cubs, enabling them to sire their own.
When resting, they seem to enjoy good
fellowship with lots of touching, head rubbing,
licking and purring.
Up to 21
hours a day, thier life is filled with sleeping, napping, and resting. At
times, they will have bursts of activity,
sometimes intense, then back to resting. They
often rest in trees and are good climbers,
possibly to catch a cool breeze, preview their
domain, or to get away from flies. Researchers
have often noticed them lying
around in crazy poses, on their backs with their
feet in the air or legs spread wide open! Some
activities are “contagious” in prides. One lion
will yawn, or groom itself, or roar, setting off
a wave of yawning, grooming, or roaring! Males
and females play very different roles in the life of
the pride. Females do 85-90% of the hunting,
normally setting up an ambush by which they
drive the prey. Males only hunt 10% of the time,
yet always get to eat first. Cooperative hunting
enables them to take prey as large as buffaloes, rhinos, hippos and giraffes. However, scavenged
food provides more than 50% of their diets
and lions
will often take over kills made by other
carnivores. A kill is not shared equally within
a pride, and at times of prey scarcity, high
juvenile mortality rates occur, as hungry
females may not even share with their offspring.
Capable hunters by 2 years of age, they
become fully grown between 5 and 6 years and
normally live about 13 years.
Some
mothers carefully care for their young; while
others may neglect or even abandon them, more
often when food is scarce. Litters consist of
two to five cubs that average around 3 pounds each.
It is very common for two or more females to give
birth about the same time, and the cubs are raised
together. A lioness will permit cubs other than her
own to suckle, sometimes enabling a neglected infant
to survive.
The
population in Africa has been reduced by half
since the early 1950s. Today, fewer than 23,000
remain in all of Africa. The Gir Wildlife
Sanctuary in India contains approximately 200
lions. They have been killed for centuries for
rituals of bravery, as hunting trophies, and for
their medicinal and magical powers. But
conflicts with humans and habitat loss are the
their greatest threat. Little is currently known about where
lions go outside of national parks, what they do and
what types of threats they face. With a growing
human population surrounding parks, there are an
increasing number of encounters with humans.
