King of the jungle…?

Lions like to sleep. And they do it a LOT - around 20 to 22 hours a day, in fact.

This can be a bit frustrating if you happen to be a wildlife photographer, but it’s worth the effort!

The best experience I had on my four-month trip to Africa in 2019 was watching four male lions take down a Cape buffalo, and I was also lucky enough to see lions mate 29 times while I was there!

The trick is to find lions hunting or mating - and preferably in good light. If they’re just lying in the shade fast asleep, you’re better off moving on and trying to find a cheetah or something…

If you want a few tips on how to shoot a tiger, just take a look at my blog post.

Basic facts

Order: Carnivora

Family: Felidae

Species: Lion

Scientific name: Panthera leo

Subspecies: African lion (Panthera leo leo) and Panthera leo melanochoita. Other subspecies suggested over the years include the Asiatic lion (Panthera leo persica), Felis leo somaliensis, Felis leo massaicus, Felis leo sabakiensis, Felis leo roosevelti, Felis leo nyanzae, Felis leo bleyenberghi, Leo leo hollisteri, Leo leo krugeri, Leo leo vernayi and Panthera leo webbensies.

Mass: 180 kg (male adult), 130 kg (female adult)

Height at shoulder: 1.2 m (male adult), 1.1 m (female adult)

Length of head and body: 184-208 cm/72-82 in (male adult), 160-184 cm/63-72 in (female adult)

Appearance: Big cat with a pale brown coat. Males are generally bigger and have a mane around their heads that can be any shade from blonde to black.

Top speed: 50 mph (81 km/h)

Gestation period: 110 days

Lifespan: 12-16 years (25 years in captivity)

IUCN Red List Status: Vulnerable (Endangered in East Africa)

Population: 23,000-39,000 mature individuals, decreasing

Habitat: Savannah, shrub land, grassland, desert

Distribution: Sub-Saharan Africa, India

Habitat

The lion is definitely not the ‘King of the Jungle’.

Lions are not found in the rainforest but mostly live in the savannah in places such as the Serengeti in Tanzania or the Masai Mara (or Maasai Mara) in Kenya.

However, they can also be found in woodland, thick bush and scrub, and there are even desert-adapted lions in Namibia and lions that live on the beach on the Skeleton Coast and in Tanzania’s Saadani National Park.

Like many cats, lions like to climb trees, and the only lion population outside Africa is in the Gir Forest in India.

Lake Manyara likes to boast about its ‘tree-climbing lions’ that climb trees on the escarpment beside the lake in order to avoid insects and benefit from the cool breeze, but I’ve seen lions climbing trees in all kinds of places, so that’s nothing special.

Prides

Lions are the most sociable of the big cats, and they can often be found in groups (known as 'prides’) that can number up to 50 individuals. In fact, I saw one in the Western Serengeti that had 56 lions in it…!

Prides usually consist of one to four dominant males plus a number of related females (and cubs).

Amongst the male lions, there is always a strict hierarchy, and this is often (but not always) based on age.

The exact reason for the existence of prides is not entirely clear.

It used to be thought that it brought the benefit of more frequent success when hunting co-operatively, but that has to be balanced against the existence of ‘free-riders’ who aren’t strong or fast enough to do their fair share.

There may also be other possible benefits of the pride system:

• kin selection

• sharing food

• protecting cubs

• maintaining territory

• insurance against injury and hunger

One thing I learned from a guide in Africa is that more than half of all male lions don’t actually belong to a pride.

This is important to bear in mind as it contradicts the ‘typical’ view of lion behaviour we learn in school!

It’s also worth mentioning that the Asiatic lion is a much more solitary creature.

Male Asiatic lions live on their own or with up to three other males whereas the females form prides with up to 12 others and their cubs.

As a result, the males and females can only be found together when mating.

Manes

Lions are sexually dimorphic, which means male and female lions look very different, and the most obvious difference is the mane.

Only male lions have manes, and they begin to grow them as they reach sexual maturity at two years old.

Unfortunately, that’s also a sign for the alpha male to kick out the young male in order to preserve his authority.

The mane is probably the male lion’s most impressive feature, and it’s actually a signal of genetic fitness: the thicker and darker the mane, the healthier the animal.

The lions with the most impressive black manes can be found in Ethiopia and the Kalahari Desert in Botswana, South Africa and Namibia.

A dark mane is a good sign of a lion’s fitness, strength, fighting ability, aggression and testosterone level, and it also has a powerful psychological effect, intimidating other lions by making its owner appear bigger and more threatening.

Dark-maned lions live longer and have a better chance of recovering from injuries, and their cubs have a higher survival rate.

For all these reasons, lionesses tend to prefer males with dark manes, but they don’t work so well in higher temperatures:

• They absorb more heat, making the lions uncomfortable and encouraging them to hunt at night rather than during the day, which may mean they can’t eat as much.

• They’re associated with lower sperm counts.

• The heat makes dark manes rarer. their length isn’t so much of an issue.

On the other hand, the length of the mane can be affected by climate and temperature, so it’s less of a sign of genetic fitness.

It’s also a good sign of the lion’s age as it takes a few years to develop fully, and that makes it easy to distinguish between older and younger males.

Hunting

Lions hunt, kill and eat medium to large mammals including the zebra, blue wildebeest, gemsbok, giraffe and Cape buffalo.

In India, the preferred prey animals are the sambar deer and chital, or spotted deer.

On average, female lions need around 5 kg of meat a day and males 7 kg or more, but an average male can eat up to 15% of his bodyweight!

Lions generally hunt from dusk until dawn, but less than 30% of hunts are successful.

Lions can easily go up to a week without feeding, but a big kill such as a Cape buffalo might last a small pride for up to three days - as I saw with my own eyes in Tanzania!

Individual animals can bring down a zebra or impala, but bigger prey such as the Cape buffalo requires a ‘coalition’ of several lions.

Within a pride, 85-90% of the hunting is done by the lionesses, and they do it cooperatively. For example, one lioness might lie in wait while two others drive the game towards her. Alternatively, I’ve seen three lionesses hunt a warthog by advancing from positions on the left, centre and right.

They stalk and then chase their prey over a short distance before jumping on their backs or hindquarters to bring them down.

After that, one will finish off the animal by either grabbing it by the neck and throttling it to death or clamping its jaws around the animal’s mouth and nostrils until it suffocates.

As it happens, lions don’t have particularly strong jaws. They have a bite force of only 650 PSI, which is not much stronger than the hardest-biting domestic dog, the English mastiff (550 PSI).

In general, the hunters are the first to feed on the prey, and other pride members have to wait their turn.

‘Nomadic’ lions obviously have no females to hunt for them, so they have to do it themselves - either alone or by forming a coalition.

It’s also worth mentioning that there is no ‘honour system’ among lions, and they’re quite happy to steal kills from wild dogs, cheetahs, hyenas and even leopards.

Lions and hyenas, in particular, seem to be in a constant battle against one another, and lions are responsible for 71% of hyena deaths in Etosha National Park, Namibia - although they don’t actually eat them afterwards.

Lions are strong enough individually to steal a kill from a hyena, but hyenas often make up in numbers what they lack in strength, and they are just as capable of stealing food from lions. In fact, hyenas in Chobe National Park, Botswana, are successful 63% of the time when trying to rob lions of a kill.

Breeding

Lions can breed throughout the year, but the fertility cycles of lionesses tend to coincide, leading to cubs being born around the same time.

I actually saw two lionesses in Ndutu, Tanzania, that had borne four cubs each, and they took turns nursing them all (see picture below).

Occasionally, nomadic males will take over a pride, killing or driving out the existing males and killing any cubs that they find.

This has the double benefit of bringing an end to the genetic lineage of the previous males and also bringing all the lionesses in the pride into oestrus so that the new males can produce their own cubs.

A litter usually consists of one to four cubs (also known as whelps or lionets), and the mother generally keeps them hidden in bushes, caves or other sheltered areas for up to six weeks after birth to protect them from predators.

She will move them around frequently in order to avoid the build-up of scent that would give away their location, often carrying them in her mouth by the nape of the neck.

Females have their first cubs when they are around four years old while males can breed when they are around two.

Mating follows a very predictable pattern:

• The male and female will move away from the rest of the pride and lie close to each other on their own.

• The female will initiate proceedings by getting up and walking a few paces away, often bending low to the ground in an obvious sign of readiness.

• The male will mount her from behind and mate with her, usually biting her neck at the same time.

• After a few seconds, the male will withdraw, and they’ll both lie back down again.

• This cycle is repeated every 10-20 minutes for a week, during which time the lion and lioness neither hunt nor eat.

From a photographic point of view, the mating itself is rather dull, but the exciting bit usually comes when the male withdraws.

The male penis has backwards-facing barbs on it, and the withdrawal of this from the lioness causes her pain.

She usually reacts by growling at the male or even slapping him with her paw!

Cubs only weigh 1.2–2.1 kg (2.6–4.6 lbs) at birth, and their (blue) eyes only open when they are a week old.

They can generally crawl after a day or two and walk after three weeks.

They suckle from their mothers (or other lionesses) until they are weaned after six or seven months.

Lion cubs are generally very playful, but this behaviour has an important purpose in preparing them for the hunt.

When cubs ‘stalk’ or jump on one another, they are effectively practising what they will have to do as adults when hunting for prey.

Cubs are trained to hunt by their mothers when they are 7-12 months old. When they’re a year old, they start to hunt on their own.

The cubs stay in the pride until they reach around two years of age, when they are kicked out and have to try to establish a territory of their own.

However, lion cubs are very susceptible to other predators such as hyenas, leopards and wild dogs, and 80% of them don’t survive past the age of two.

Territory

Lions used to be common in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, North America and northern India.

However, habitat loss and hunting have drastically reduced their global distribution and numbers so that now they can only be found in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Gir Forest in India.

Their territories can stretch over hundreds of kilometres, and lions will defend them to the death.

The territory of a pride is technically known as the ‘pride area’ while that of nomadic males is known as the ‘range’.

Communication

Lions produce a variety of calls, but they’re most famous for their ability to roar.

I’ve been in the savannah at night listening to this, and it really is quite impressive - and intimidating!

The roar of a lion can be heard up to five miles or eight kilometres away.

Lions roar for various reasons:

• territorial displays

• finding other members of the pride

• helping females distinguish between members of their own pride and nomadic males

• helping lions protect their cubs from outsiders

In addition, lions can make a variety of other noises:

• growling

• snarling

• meowing

• purring

• puffing

• bleating

• humming

They also communicate non-verbally by rubbing their heads together and ‘social licking’ in the head and neck area.

When it comes to facial expressions and body postures, the most easily recognisable is the ‘grimace face’ or Flehmen response of the male lion.

This looks like the lion is showing anger, but he is actually exposing an organ in the roof of his mouth to check for the scent of a female in heat!

Threats

The world lion population is low and in decline.

There were more than 200,000 wild lions in Africa at the start of the 20th Century compared to only a tenth of that number now.

The IUCN deems the lion to be in its ‘vulnerable’ category, and it faces many threats to its existence:

• habitat loss

• predation

• disease (such as canine distemper virus)

• parasites (such as stable fly)

• declines in prey species

• conflict with humans (either in self-defence or as retribution for attacks on livestock)

• poaching (for bones and other parts of the body used in traditional medicine).

Over half of the wild population of lions co-exists with humans and livestock, so conflict is inevitable unless the local tribes can be persuaded to see the lion as an asset rather than a predator.

There is some good work being done by the owners of safari lodges who lease the land from the Masai in exchange for exclusive access to it and a ban on livestock, but it’s a long, hard road…

Sources: Africa Freak, Wikipedia, National Geographic, Lion Landscapes, BBC, IUCN

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