The lion has forever been a symbol of strength,power ferocity, and for royalty and stateliness. Renowned for its majesty and nicknamed “the king of the jungle,” the lion possesses both beauty and strength. A male lion weighs about 500 pounds and grows to eight feet in length. Facts about the king of the beasts, the ever noble lion.
10. Lions live in groups, called prides, of around 15-30 cats. A pride consists of up to three males, a dozen related females, and their young. The size of the pride is determined by the availability of food and water. If resources are scarce, the pride becomes smaller.
Not all lions live in prides. At maturity, young males leave the units of their birth and spend several years as nomads before they become strong enough to take over a pride of their own. Some never stop wandering and continue to follow migrating herds; but the nomadic life is much more difficult, with little time forresting or reproducing.
9. Female lions (lionesses) do 85 to 90 percent of the pride’s hunting. They are smaller and more agile than males,who focus their efforts on protecting their domain. But since the lionesses prey is still generally faster than them, they use teamwork to bring an animal down. Usually hunting at night, they fan out to form a semicircle, with the smaller, weaker lionesses herding the prey towards the center. Then the stronger females knock the animal down and make the kill.
Their prey includes antelopes, buffaloes,zebras, young elephants, rhinos, hippos, wild hogs, crocodiles and giraffes. But they also sometimes eat smaller prey like mice, birds, hares, lizards, and tortoises. They are not above stealing kills from other carnivores, like hyenas or scavenging spoiled meat.
8. Spending 16-20 hours of the day sleeping orresting, lions are the laziest of the big cats, but maybe not as lazy as your pet cat. They can be found lying on their backs with their feet up or taking a snooze up in a tree. While lazing around, they are very affection ate towards one another, rubbing heads, grooming, and purring.
7. Though lions once lived in most parts of Africa,they are now found only in the south Saharan desert and in parts of southern and eastern Africa. Lions at one time were found from Greece through the Middle East to northern India, and even in North America, but today only a very small population remains in India. Although, lions are known as “King of the Jungle,” they live in grasslands and plains – not the jungle.
6. The mane of the male lion is a distinctive characteristic of lions as no other big cats have them. It makes male lions appear larger, thus allowing them to be more intimidating. It also signals sexual maturity and health status; lionesses tend to favour denser and darker manes.
5. Ancient Egyptians venerated lions as their war dieties due to their strength, power and fierceness. The famous sphinxes are just one of many mythicaldepictions of the lion in Egyptian culture. The lions are thought to have been bred in sanctuary precincts, where they were ritually fed and buried in a sacred animal necropolis.
4. Lionesses are caring mothers who will even take care of a neglected cub, allowing him/her to suckle and giving them a chance to survive. Two or more lionesses in a group tend to give birth around the same time, and the cubs are raised together. Female lions, sisters, live together for life. Their female cubs also stay with the pride,even after they’re grown, but as mentioned earlier, male cubs must venture out on their own once they reach maturity.
3. Most lions drink water daily if available,but can go four or five days without it. Lions in arid areas seem to obtain needed moisture from the stomach contents of their prey.
2. A 12-year-old Ethiopian girl was abducted in 2005 by men attempting to force her into marriage. She was found a week later protected by three lions who “stood guard until we [police] found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest.”
1. In 2015, the US Fish and Wildlife Services announced that African lions may be facing extinction by the year 2050. The agency proposed listing the lions as “threatened”under the Endangered Species Act. The greatest threats facing lions are habitat loss, loss of prey (largely due to the bush meat trade), and human-lion conflict, including sport hunting and retaliation kills, in which lions are killed after attacking area livestock. There are only about 34,000 lions left in Africa, which is about half the number that existed 30 years ago. About 70 percent of these animals live in just 10 regions of the continent. In West Africa, fewer than 250 adult lions remain. Well there you have it. It was impossible to cram all the interesting facts about lions into one article They are amazing creatures. What facts did we miss? Please leave them in the comments below.
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