Nature Trails with Adventurekim.com: The lions den Nikon Coolpix L820

The King of the Jungle, the mighty and awesome Lion!!
Photos captured with my Nikon Coolpix L820

Size:Male: 1.2m (at shoulder), Female: 1.1 m (at shoulder)
Weight: Male: 190 kg (up to 260 kg): Female 130 kg
Males reach maximum weight at 7 years and female at 5-6 years (declines with age)
Lifespan: 10-14 years (maximum 18) females live longer, males killed or die at about 10 years old)
Habitat & Distribution: Wide tolerance, even will penetrate into deserts, found along dry river courses. they don't need much cover to stalk and hunt medium to large-sized prey animals

Gestation 110 days (3.5 months) no of young 1-6 (average 3)
Prey: mammals from mice to buffalo, even the odd elephant, birds up to the size of ostrich, reptiles, insects, fish and carrion. Common prey are giraffe, wildebeest, zebra, impala, waterbuck, warthog and kudu
Predators: hyenas and man, other carnivores and pythons take their cubs.

Lions are the largest African carnivores and the only social cats out in the bushveld. Lions by cooperating within prides are able to kill bigger animals and improved their chances of a successful kill. In cases where there is little cover. they are able to improve the survival of their young through cooperation.

Beautiful Male white lion

Most of us believe that a pride of lions is made up of a single dominant male and his females but this is not always the case. A territory is held by several males within a partnership. This partnership is known as a coalition. Two to five males can exist in the coalition and their territories overlap with a number of different and mutually exclusive females territories.

Female actually do most of the hunting. Males will assist with the larger kills that those of giraffe and buffalo. Males are in fact rather good hunters when they are on the own. Males are the first to eat and at times will take over the entire carcass to the exclusion of the females that made the kill, this also includes their very own cubs.

The females will tolerate this behaviour because the males are larger and stronger and offer protection by defending their territory against both hyenas and other male lions

Beautiful Male white lion

Foreign males that move into their territories will kill all the cubs in a pride that are less than 1 year old. This is executed to bring the females in the "hijacked" territories into heat quickly so that they can mate with the pride females and then spend their time tenure as the territorial coalition defending their own offspring.

The females will only conceive once the new males have established themselves with in the pride. This mechanism prevents wasted reproduction energy incase the new males become displaced soon after the takeover. This also prevents the females from loosing their cubs to a repeated territorial take over.

Lions have protractile claws and can be pushed out by muscle contraction when the lion needs to fight or hunt. They are able to relax back into a protective sheath when no longer required. This keeps them from becoming blunt when the lions walk around.

Their smaller dewclaw on the wrist is used when pouncing on its prey in order to secure it.

Their paws are huge!!

Lions will drink water regularly when its available. Most of their fluid/moisture requirements are fulfilled by the bloody meat they consume.

This male lion has a really dark mane. You can also find males that are maneless.

Lions roar to advertise their territory and to locate other members of their pride. This is done mostly at night due to the fact that this is where they are at their most active and because the air is somewhat stiller and sound will carry further.

The lions roar carries over 7 km depending on the time of the year and weather conditions.

Lions are able to recognise individual roars and will respond accordingly to one another.

Lions are able to roar so loudly due to the suspensorium which is a voice box found at the top of their windpipe and suspended with cartilage.

The larynx of other species are ossified in place. The cartilage allows for movement of the suspensorium and as a result the vibrations caused during vocalisation are significantly enhanced and are therefore much louder allowing them to project even further.

I found this very interesting that of all the African cats the lion is most closely related to the Leopard (Panthera genus) because of their similar voice box structures.

Lions are also able to moan, purr, growl, snarl and the cubs can meow.

Lions have well developed carnassial shears. their carnassials are made up of the fourth upper premolar and the first lower molar. The teeth are laterally flattened and they will articulate against each other, acting in a scissor-like blade action which cuts the meat and sinew.

Their long sharp canines are used to grasp and kill prey and are actually of no use during actually feeding.

Their strong lower jaw is powered by very well-developed muscles that are attached to their massive skulls. Can you believe that a lion's skull weights over 3 kg!!

After resting during the day and before they become active for their evening activities they will spend time in contagious behaviour, like yawning, grooming, defecating, urinating and communal roaring. This behaviour is believed to create cohesion within the pride.

Lions are extremely lethargic for the majority of their lives and will spend up to 20 hours a day resting and sleeping!! This is actually necessary to recuperate from the intense periods they will spend patrolling and hunting. don't be fooled though even when the do seem comatose they are often alert and jump into action in seconds.

Lionesses will often synchronise their breeding which is useful as all the mothers will mutually suckle each others cubs. Should there be very new cubs within a pride as well as any cubs may be 3 months or older, the mother of the younger cubs will want to keep her offspring away from the pride for a bit longer than the usual 6 week waiting period. The reason for this is that the older cubs are stronger and have will have easier access to the milk on offer to the exclusion of the smaller cubs.

this lion is really magnificent. !!

Lions have black tips to their tails and black markings behind their ears. Like the Caracal these are "follow me" signs. The black tail is at precisely the right hight for the little cubs to follow a female through the tall garss.

Like all cats lions express their mods with their tails and ears which is why these areas are highlighted to be used as a valuable communication tool and during co-ordination during hunts. While the black is rather obvious from behind the lion when you look at the lion from the front the animal remains completely camouflaged.

lions are super predators and will dominate the bushveld within the predator hierarchy. They will steal food from other predators when ever they can and will mutually kill each others cubs.

They may even kill other smaller carnivores as a source of food. Their only real competition is the hyena who need to exist in larger numbers to come up against the mighty lion. However even a large clan of hyenas do not stand much of a change against a pride if the males are present.

Elephants will chase and even kill lions to protect their young. Herds of buffalo are known to do the same. The lion kills are always followed by the hyena, jackals and vultures all of which will attempt to scavenge the leftover.

Mature males have huge beautiful manes of hair that cover their necks and shoulders, making them look larger and rather impressive to their contenders and of course to the females! When male lions fight they do so in head-to-head combat, raking each other with their claws.

A dense mane of hair will protect their necks for a fatal blow.

Male lions will seldom kill each other unless the are disputing a territory. In fact they take great care to actually avoid confrontation with each other. Fighting creates an immediate risk of injury and any injury could possibily lead to disability in defending territory or catch food.

Lions spend a great deal of time advertising their position through roaring and scent-marking. Lions will mark their territories by urine spraying bushes and other obvious objects. They defecate rather conspicuously and scrape the ground where they have urinated with their feet and in so doing transfer their scent to their feet and as they patrol their boundaries this scent in turn is then spread about.

Lions are experts at stalking. They use the barest of covers to get up close to their prey by holding their head and body very close to the ground. Their eyes will be firmly fixed on the victim while they carefully move, freezing immediately should the prey lift its head.

Lions will get in as close as possible to their prey before the final dash and then pounce. Sometimes a chase is necessary but this will always be rather short as lions can cover 100 m in 6 seconds in the final chase.

The point of attack is usually on the rump or the shoulders of its prey and their sheer weight will cause their prey to stumble. Their prey is grabbed at either the throat or muzzle for the final act of strangulation or suffocation.

Lions are opportunistic feeders, eating mostly medium to large antelope but can eat anything from a mouse to a huge elephant. The follow other predators, including vultures to various kill sites with one thing in mind, to steal their food, which will include putrid meat. They will ambush animals by lying in wait at isolated waterholes.

They have been known to dig warthogs out of their burrows or pick off antelope lying in the grass.

They rid the populations of their sick and weak members, hunting predominantly under the cover of darkness but will hunt during the day if the opportunity presents itself. Lions will gorge themselves when the feed leaving the almost immovable but food passes through their guts rather quickly to allow for a second meal soon afterwards.

Lion cubs are born blind and weak. The gestation period is short since lionesses need to hunt in order to survive and provide for the pride. They would be severely disadvantaged if they were weighted down by their heavily pregnant bellies for long periods of time. as a result the cubs are then undeveloped at birth and need to be kept in hiding until they are strong enough to join the pride and hold their own.

This is the opposite of their prey, antelope need only to eat grass to avoid starvation and a pregnant belly is not problem to them. Once the antelope are born they must run to escape predators and because of this their young need to be born able to move and see immediately, this is of course possible because they stay longer and therefore develop well in the womb.

This female lion is really beautiful!! Cub mortality is as high as 50%!

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 the territory but will join up, from time to time.

Young males are ousted from their 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, from about the age of 5. They are fully mature at 7 years old at which time their manes are at their fullest. after tenure of territory ousted older males will also resort to a nomadic lifestyle and are often killed or die from lack of pride support by 10 year.