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Physical Characteristics of Lions:
Lions ('Panthera Leo') are the second largest members of the feline family in the world, with only the tiger physically larger. Male lions weigh on average 416 pound (189 kilograms) while female lions weigh 277 pounds (126 kilograms). Lions are tan in color and have slightly white under-body, with a tuft of black hair at the end of their tails.
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Male lions are typically 4 feet in height (1.2 meters), with a large mane of hair that begins to develop around age two that surrounds the neck. The mane can vary in color from tawny/tan to black. |
| Females are 44 inches (1.1 meters) in height, and have no mane around their neck. Cubs are born with a slightly spotted coat, which changes to their parents tawny coloration around three months of age. Female lions live longer than males and Serengeti female lions can live up to age 18, whereas males typically live up to age 12. |
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Male Coalitions / Male Behavior:
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| Male lions leave their pride of birth between the ages of two and four, and sets of male cubs born together will remain together throughout their lives. |
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Male coalitions are not always blood relatives since males can team up with other independent males during their nomadic years. Nearly two-third of all male pairs and nearly half of all trios contain unrelated partners.
Large male coalitions can always out compete smaller male coalitions for taking over a pride of females, and such coalitions may include as many as nine males. Within the coalition however, it is every male for himself for four or five days and warns of his male companions. Rarely does overt fighting break our between partners.
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While male lions that form larger coalitions will be more successful in acquiring territory, the chances that an individual male lion will father offspring is not shared equally. Males only achieve equal mating success in pairs.
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Male lions have an unconditional affection for their coalition partners, whether they are blood relatives or not. Males will always co-operate with each other in defending their territory and their pride from other intruding male lions. Even when members of a coalition are temporarily separated from each other, they will still defend their territory from intruders, even when they are out-numbered.
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Prey Species:
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| Lions are opportunists when it comes to feeding. They will scavenge from other predators that have killed an animal, or will hunt animals ranging in size from the large African buffalo to a small hare. |
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Based on observations conducted in the Serengeti from 1966 to 1991, seven species represented over 90% of the diet of lions. They were wildebeest, zebra, Thompson's gazelle, buffalo, warthog, kongoni (hartebeest), and topi. |
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Lions do not vary their hunting frequency of buffalo. Only large lion prides tend to hunt buffalo, and typically go after solitary bulls rather than stalk and take on a whole herd of buffalo.
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Hunting Strategies:
Lions hunting in groups of two or more successfully catch prey approximately 30% of the time, whereas individual lions are successful on only 17% of their hunts.
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Flehman and Marking
Scent is an important aspect of every lion's life. Lions are extremely territorial and one of the ways they define their territory is by marking. Males mark by spraying a combination of urine and scent from two glands at the base of their tales. While marking they scrape the ground, often leaving a noticeable depression which itself may serve as a signal to other lions.
In addition, like many other mammals, lions have a specialized organ for detecting scent. This is called the vomeronasal organ, and when using this organ, lions exhibit a facial expression called "flehmen". The flehmen face is characterized by an open mouth, a wrinkled nose and an uplifted chin.
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Nursing and Lactation
One of the more idyllic sights in African game parks are that of a lioness nursing her cubs. Cubs nurse exclusively until they are old enough to eat meat - typically at around six weeks of age - and they continue to nurse until approximately 8 months of age.
A nursing mother can be identified by the dark rings around her areolae or nipples. Noting the appearance of rings helps to date the birth of cubs.
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It is common to see cubs nursing from females other than their own mother. This is termed "communal nursing" and implies that females are willing to co-operate by nursing each other's young.
Why should females share their milk when producing milk is so costly? |
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Eleanor Briccetti
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Our research has revealed that individual females actually try to discourage the cubs of other females from nursing. But they are more likely to share their milk with the offspring of close relation, like their sisters.
Thus this behavior is less co-operative than it appears at first glance.When cubs aren't nursing, it is common to see them playing. Lions are playful animals, and even adult females and males may play. Play behavior in young animals often imitates behavior that will be important to them later in life. |
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Group Structure:
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| Lions are the only 'social' cats, whereby related female lions live together and form groups called 'prides'. Lion's prides are family groups with all of the females related, mothers and daughters, sisters and cousins, etc. |
| A pride can range from three to 30 individuals, but tend to average about fifteen members, which include male and female lions plus a number of cubs. |
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The number of lions in a pride will vary significantly based on the number of prey animals that live or migrate through the pride's territory.
A pride of lions will live in a territory that they will defend from other lions. Lions identify their territory by roaring loudly or by physically scent marking trees or rock outcrops. While female lions will hunt and kill most of the animals for the pride to eat, male lions are around primarily to defend the territory from other lion prides or nomadic male lions.
While female lions will live with the pride for life, male lions will only last two to four years before they are evicted or killed by a new coalition of male lions that take over the pride.
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Mating :
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| Females start breeding at age four, and can come into heat at any time of the year; however, prides tend to synchronize reproduction. This could be due to new male coalitions taking over the pride and the death of their previous litter of cubs. |
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| It is estimated that lions must copulate 3 000 times for every cub that survives to a year of age. Upon successful conception, the gestation period is 14 to 15 weeks (around 110 days). |
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| Females won't come into heat for another 20 to 30 months after a litter in born, however, if their cubs are killed, females can come into heat within four days of death of the cubs. |
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How to Identify Individual Lions:
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Lions can be identified by recording the spots on their muzzle. Lions have 4 or 5 parallel rows of vibrissae, or whisker spots, on either side of its muzzle.
Lionologists concentrate on the few extra spots above the topmost row (the "reference" row), and sometimes the spots are in the shape of a triangle. Other lions have just two or three spots in a straight line. |
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The spots usually differ on each side of the face, and their relative position above the reference row is different on every animal. Whisker spots are easily detected in even the smallest cubs, and they remain the same throughout the lion's life.
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Sleeping and yawning by Lions
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| Many people are surprised to learn that lions spend most of their time asleep. In fact, lions seem to spend more time asleep than almost any other animal in the Serengeti. Is the king of the beasts really the couch potato of the beasts? Actually, there are several good reasons why lions are so inactive. |
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First of all, sleeping conserves energy. While photos and films of lions sometimes give the impression that lions are constantly hunting and feeding, finding enough food is very difficult. |
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| Hunting success is typically very low and scavenging is unpredictable, so on average lion's end up eating only every other day. Sleeping is a good way to make each meal last longer. |
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| Another good reason is that lions are the largest predators in the ecosystems where they're found. This means, quite simply, that they have very little to fear from other animals (excepting man). The need for vigilance, which keeps most prey species alert and on their toes, is therefore essentially absent in lions. |
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| Finally, lions are actually primarily nocturnal. This means that when they do move we, as spectators are far less likely to observe it. However, even at night, lions are more likely to be asleep than not. |
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| Some primates yawn in order to intimidate rivals by revealing their large teeth, but this doesn't appear to be the case with lions. Given how much time lions spend asleep, we might ask if they yawn just as a result of fatigue. Surprisingly, this is probably not the case. Lions are most likely to yawn is situations where they are nervous and uncomfortable, and they often yawn just as they are about to get up rather than the opposite. |
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