Lion pictures and videos

[Spalea]

Wild Eye: " In a new weekly series, Wild Eye brings you some facts about the species they come across on their expeditions and tours across the globe.

This week we focus on the Lion.
Lions are the only one of the big cats that live in a family unit called a pride. This will generally consist of females(generally all related), cubs and the dominate Male/s.
Male lions often form coalitions(usually brothers or cousins from the same pride) to give themselves a better chance at finding and defending a territory. Big coalitions will often hold larger territories allowing them to have anything tween 3 and 5 different prides of females in their territory
Lions are very strategic hunters and each member of the pride plays a certain role in hunting. Due to prides often consisting of a number of individuals they have to prey on larger animals such as kudu, buffalo and in some cases elephants. This does not mean that they won’t hunt smaller species such as impala, they are opportunistic hunters which means that if an opportunity presents itself, they will make an attempts.
A pride success rate in hunting on average on only 4/10.
Lions are generally more nocturnal and spend the majority of a 24 hour day, 18 – 20 hours, sleeping. They prefer to conserve their energy during the day and use the cooler temperatures of the late afternoon, evening and early morning to be active, this could be from patrolling territory to hunting.
When it comes to offspring, a lioness can have anything between 1 and 4 cubs at any given time. If there are other females in the pride that to have cubs and are lactating they will allow cubs from the other females to suckle too, this is known as allo-suckling which develops the bond between pride members.
These cats are very social animals and will always stick up for each other, protect each other, hunt with each other and groom each other (allo-grooming reassuring the bond) but when it comes time to feeding, it is every lion for themselves.
These cats are incredible and any time we get to spend with them should never be taken for granted! "

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