The Mighty Mapogos

[Mapokser]

Very interesting video. Mapogos have a history with killing their own coalition's cubs. The 5 younger ones killed Makhulu's cubs in 2007 too. Does anyone even know why? Maybe because Makhulu was the only one who mated with the lionesses? Iirc it maybe have been even another occasion of Mapogos killing cubs besides the 2007 and the 2010 occasions.

But on Mr.T's case, it's interesting because he clearly sees that the others are protecting the cubs and won't even allow him to get close to the kill. I wonder if his intentions were to kill them to mate with the lionesses himself ( and he didn't mind killing his nephews  for that ), or he was just instinctively killing them because from his POV they are foreigner cubs and he was confused for why the brothers were protecting them? In this case he couldn't realize that they were their brothers cubs or he couldn't know/be sure since he wasn't there when they were mating.

It's hard to know his reasons exactly since, well, he's a lion, he doesn't have human reasoning and acts more on instinct. But my point is, it's normal behaviour for a lion to kill his brother's cubs if he think there's no chance the cubs are his? If he knows he didn't mated with the lioness and only his brother did, would the lion consider killing the cubs if he gets the chance? If he suddenly becomes the dominant of the two, if the other dies and he's the only dominant one, or some similar situation, or would he be ok having nephews around? Or if anything, he would kill them to be able to mate with the lionesses faster? Reply