LION (PANTHERA LEO).
ORDER : Carnivora ; FAMILY : Felidae
SIMBA (in Swahili)
Those big ginger cats, roaming in packs, are better known than their solitary and quiet cousins, leopards, jaguars and tigers. Males can reach up to 2,70 m in length (sometimes 3 m), of which 90 cm is tail. They are 10 hands and can weigh up to 250 kg. Lionesses are smaller, rangy, but even so they can weigh up to 150 kg ! Males differ from females by a black or tawny mane that covers their head, neck and shoulders.
Lions were once widespread from southern Europe to northern and central India and over the whole of Africa. The last lion in Europe died around the end of the first century of our era. In Asia, the only lions left can be found in the India’s Gir Forest. They have been wiped out in northern Africa. Nowadays, they are essentially found in East Africa (in many regions of Kenya, among others) and in South Africa (the best-known site being Kruger Park).
Lions can live in a very variable habitat: areas of thin vegetation, regions of bush, scattered trees or even sometimes in forests. Their tawny coat is an excellent camouflage in the tall grass of savannahs.
Lions are social animals, unlike most other members of the cat family, living in prides of about twenty, sometimes thirty members. Each one of those prides are led by one or several adult male lions and some lionesses accompanied by their young. A very obvious hierarchy is established between the females of a same pride, the dominant female being covered the first and so on. Nevertheless, all the females will take part in the feeding and education of the young. Males roam lonely around their pride, sleeping 18 hours a day, but also ready to leap in order to defend their territory or fight a possible rival. In case of danger, all the members of a same pride collaborate for the clan’s defence, but the lionesses are the ones that really do all the hunting.
Lionesses in groups sometimes roar in order to communicate together, but when the precise moment of hunting has come, they become quiet again. When they charge at their victims, lionesses can reach speeds of up to 64 km/h, but only on a short distance. After pinning their preys to the ground, lionesses will break their nape with one blow from their jaw or thanks to their anterior legs for the biggest gazelles or the gnus. Males feed first, followed by the females and finally the cubs. Leftovers will be left to carrion feeders: hyenas, jackals, vultures… The main victims of lions are young, injured or sick animals. Most of them are antelopes, zebras, gnus, but whichever animal can suit at a time of famine: from fieldmice to young elephants! If a lion is injured or too old and has no strength left to attack strong preys, he will set about porcupines, small rodents, goats, lambs or exceptionally men. After a substantial meal, the pride will have a rest for several days.
At the age of 5, lions reach their prime and are stronger than ever. Males fight in order to remove the rivals and may mate with several females. Those rituals are accompanied by many roars that can be heard up to 8 km away in savannah! Gestation is 105-112 days (versus more or less 60 days for their distant cousins the cats). Lionesses usually give birth to 2-5 cubs, born blind and, therefore, totally depending on their mother. They are fully weaned from breast milk at around 3 months. They will observe the hunting techniques of their mothers during the first months and will be able to hunt at around the age of 1.
Because the cubs are the last to feed, many of them die because of the lack of food (from essential amino-acids or vitamins deficiency). This way, a natural selection imposes itself.
Apart from man, lions have no natural enemies. Sometimes, they are killed by blows from the horns or the hooves of the preys they were hunting. They seldom attack buffalos, those high-powered herbivores (1 tonne for big males) living in groups of several dozens of members.
In Kenya, there is plenty of lions, where they live in very different biotopes such as savannah planted with trees, on the periphery of the capital, in the National Park of Nairobi, in the desert savannah or in the flaming savannah of the Massaï-Mara National Park, near the trees bordering the turquoise waters about which thousands of pink flamingos from the Nakuru National Park are scattered or among the doum-palms and the baobabs of the Meru National Park. The list is not exhaustive and many others Kenyan parks, reserves or private ranches have the good luck to be inhabited by those wonderful felidae.
Finally, how not to tremble with the legend of the Tsavo man-eater lions told by the ancients; how not to be full of emotion by Elsa - the lioness that adopted a baby antelope and above all how not to be filled with wonder for ever and ever because, on the occasion of an evening by the fire, a group of lionesses and their young cross your camp before disappearing in the night?
Veterinary Surgeon David Brasseur
