Mangheni Pride

[BA0701]

(08-28-2023, 07:37 PM)NLAL11 Wrote:

(08-28-2023, 10:54 AM)Mapokser Wrote: In another thread we were talking about inbreeding on Manyeleti and Timbavati, and I got to think about Sabi Sands and realized the Mangheni Pride is also somehow inbred:

As Londolozi puts it, the Tsalala pride was born when 2 Ximhungwe females broke away, carrying the cubs from the West Street Males.

*This image is copyright of its original author

Only one cub survived, the Original Tailless Tsalala BB, she's the ancestor of all the Tsalalas, Manghenis and Kambulas alive today:

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://blog.londolozi.com/2021/12/07/th...ala-pride/

According to Elephant Plains, BB is the mother of 2 of the original Manghenis:

*This image is copyright of its original author

https://www.elephantplains.co.za/big-5-b...mber-2012/

The mothers of the Manghenis were BB's half-brothers, the Mapogos. The other 2 Manghenis were daughters of BB's daughters with their Mapogo uncles.

Now, currently, the new cubs are from total unrelated males, but there is a coalition of four 4,5-5yo  Kambula Males just east of the Mangheni's territory, these males are grandsons of the 2 remaining original females, and nephews of the 3 younger females. So one more reason to hope the Kambulas don't target the Mangheni pride, though I'm afraid there's quite a good chance they will, since they probably won't target their natal pride east of them, and they aside the Mangheni is the next big pride around.

Hopefully though, they'll go for Talamatis, Nkuhumas, or even leave SS, though I doubt they will, they spent their entire nomadic life there after all, and considering their barely older brothers are already dominant males despite lacking the western Kambulas numbers, it's quite possible the Kambulas will start showing territorial behavior soon.

This kind of this probably happens quite a lot. According to Kevin Richardson (The Lion Whisperer), lions can actually handle a few generations of inbreeding before genetic problems begin to occur.

But yes, it would be best if the Kambula Males looked somewhere else. Tinya is even their half-sibling/cousin. I think, though, that the PC males are aggressive and intimidating enough to see off a group of inexperienced males like the Kambulas, even if they do have double the numbers.

It's good that the PC males have arrived, as they are totally unrelated to any of the prides in the area. Although as descendents of the Mantimale males are now mating with prides in the east, west and south, they may become the new WS males, and in another generation or two we'll have the same problem.

Inbreeding can, in fact, have an impact on the population, as it is currently impacting the Crater Lions population. The Crater is semi-closed off from the surrounding areas, but not entirely. At the time of the study linked in post 447 of this thread, every lion in the crater could be traced back to the original 15 lions in there, in fact there was a plague that killed off a large portion of the population, and after that happened the majority of the lions in the Crater are descendants of 4 females who were all born in the Crater in 1957. Inbreeding is resulting in sperm abnormalities and a decrease in reproductive performance in the Crater population.

https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-lions-o...rs?page=30 Reply