Lions of Manyeleti

[RookiePundit]

(03-21-2025, 12:51 AM)MrLoesoe Wrote: The Remaining Son of Red Road a.k.a. the young Nharu male - as a cub

Now that the remaining son of Red Road, the young Nharu male, is growing into an adult male and seems to have a great bond with his father, and is the only male offspring of Red Road that we are still able to follow and possibly the only one alive, I wanted to dive a bit deeper into his history. As we all know the young Nharu male has got a bit of a goofy face (the left side of his lip is higher than the right side), due to a jaw or lip that is assymetrical, so I thought: maybe he was recognizable as a cub. And he is :) 

I watched all Tintswalo videos from the time he should have been born and I think I found footage of him. It turns out he was born with this goofy mouth, or he got it from a very very young age. As he became older, and obviously his jaw and face grew, it became more prominent.

This first photo below, was the first time he was filmed. Since the video was published on 6 June 2020, I think he was born March or April 2020. So basically the young Nharu male is (almost) 5 years old now. He was born into a litter of four. I think by one of the older lionesses, but I am not 100% sure. As you can see, his mouth is already a bit 'displaced' from this very young age.





Footage starts at 5:28:

He grew up during a time where there were a lot of cubs in the Nharu pride (15+). There were at least three litters. I think he was part of the second litter (first and second were quite close to eachother). During this time a lot of cubs caught mange and were underfed, including the young Nharu male, as you can see below, in very weak condition.



The most special footage I found was the one below, where his father, Red Road, is cleaning / bonding with him. And other family members are in the back. It seems father and son have always had a great bond. Perhaps that plays a role in the fact that he is still with the pride in 2025.



The bonding of RR and his son starts at 2:58 in the video below:

As the young Nharu male grew up, a lot of his siblings disappeared. Below you can see him age 1.5+:



Again bonding with RR:



At some point, he had three brothers, so four male cubs / subadults in total. Unfortunately, his brothers disappeared.

At almost 5 years old, this is him now:

(All photos attached are screenshotted from Tintswalo Lodge videos.)

There was at one point at least 17 cubs in the litters the "Red Road Son" is from (maybe initially more Idk). There was an interaction with Mbiris (who were stronger at the time) which resulted in a loss of some cubs then (not sure if it was from 17 to 9 right on, but it was significant). Eventually 9 made it, 4 males, 5 females. Reply

[MrLoesoe]

RRM, son and Nharus. Look at the reaction of the females as the big male arrives dominantly, lol.

RRM has kept a very close watch lately, I have noticed. Lots of footage of him with the pride. Maybe not a coincidence given new offspring that was born. Also I have noticed the son is laying down quite a lot, at least when his father is around, indeed signs of more passive behaviour. Could partly explain why he is still tolerated.

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[sunless]

Update for the Mbiri Pride and Nzuri, seems like the Mbiri Pride is not frequenting the Manyeleti and seemingly follows the Mbiri Males in Southern Timbavati/Ngala
I cannot find the tutorial for Youtube Shorts, can 1 of the mods please fix this post if you know how to fix it thank you so much but below is the link for the shorts if WF does not have an embed for YT Shorts.

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[BA0701]

(03-23-2025, 09:25 PM)sunless Wrote: Update for the Mbiri Pride and Nzuri, seems like the Mbiri Pride is not frequenting the Manyeleti and seemingly follows the Mbiri Males in Southern Timbavati/Ngala
I cannot find the tutorial for Youtube Shorts, can 1 of the mods please fix this post if you know how to fix it thank you so much but below is the link for the shorts if WF does not have an embed for YT Shorts.

Fixed it for you. This tutorial might help you in embedding YT Shorts videos. If you need further help, just PM myself, or any of the other Mods, and we'll be happy to assist.

https://wildfact.com/forum/topic-embeddi...-your-post Reply

[MrLoesoe]

(03-23-2025, 09:25 PM)sunless Wrote: Update for the Mbiri Pride and Nzuri, seems like the Mbiri Pride is not frequenting the Manyeleti and seemingly follows the Mbiri Males in Southern Timbavati/Ngala
I cannot find the tutorial for Youtube Shorts, can 1 of the mods please fix this post if you know how to fix it thank you so much but below is the link for the shorts if WF does not have an embed for YT Shorts.

Very interesting, so Mbiri pride is now maybe under more direct control of the Mbiri males? Could very well be the case and the reason why they are in Timbavati / north instead of central-north Manyeleti like their normal territory.

Also I almost got fooled but this footage is not new, the single cub is most likely not alive anymore, at least that's what I read. If so then for the females there's more reason to move into an area with dominant males like the Mbiri males, right? Reply

[MrLoesoe]

Video quality is far from optimal lol but judging by this footage RRM still looks a fair margin bigger than his son, at least in terms of height. It is a shame that the 'spitting image RR son' disappeared, he looked like the real deal. Well, we cannot rule out that he pops up in Kruger some time like @Tr1x24 said.

Real interesting how relaxed father and son are next to each other (at this age). Lying next to each other in the grass like coalition partners would do.

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[Tr1x24]

(03-23-2025, 11:23 PM)MrLoesoe Wrote: Real interesting how relaxed father and son are next to each other (at this age). Lying next to each other in the grass like coalition partners would do.

Yea, this more and more looks like Mandevu - Nzuri situation. Reply

[Ngonya]

hopefully wont end the same way Reply

[Guillermo94]

(03-23-2025, 09:25 PM)sunless Wrote: Update for the Mbiri Pride and Nzuri, seems like the Mbiri Pride is not frequenting the Manyeleti and seemingly follows the Mbiri Males in Southern Timbavati/Ngala
I cannot find the tutorial for Youtube Shorts, can 1 of the mods please fix this post if you know how to fix it thank you so much but below is the link for the shorts if WF does not have an embed for YT Shorts.

Hi I had one question. I know in Mibiri pride one cub was around. Is any updates of cubs said? Reply

[Mapokser]

Even after the Mbiri males mated with the pride, being possibly the fathers of the cub, that the Mbiri pride still lived in Northern Manyeleti, having it as their core territory, but since the fight they seemingly moved completely to Timbavati. I think they saw Mandevu's death as the culmination of the takeover and are trying to be under the Mbiri males as much as possible, maybe even to avoid Nzuri being their dominant male.

As for RR and his son, it's unusual to have the dominant male bonding with the 5yo son like that, but let's wait to see how RR reacts if he sees his son scent-marking, roaring or attempting to mate, if he accepts it then yeah he's clearly wanting to join the son, probably seeing himself aging and realizing he won't be as strong as before.

If they make the coalition, the chances of the new cubs suddenly increase quite a bit, but I hope they don't try to pull a Mandevu and expand, feeling empowered by being 2, it'd be bad for the new cubs and it could end bad for RR too depending to where he tries to expand, RR has been a solo male since forever, and a strong bold one, I can't imagine what he can do when feeling he has another male backing him up.

There's the issue of inbreeding though, so if RR and son would stick to the pride, raising the new cubs, ideally RR's daughters would make a breakaway under some other males, this way everybody wins, though in lion dynamics, things very rarely go that smoothly. Reply

[criollo2mil]

(03-24-2025, 01:31 AM)Guillermo94
dateline='1742761891' Wrote: Hi I had one question. I know in Mibiri pride one cub was around. Is any updates of cubs said?

I asked Matt about him last week.   He said it’s likely gone.  

The cub has not been seen the last few times he has seen the pride. Reply

[Guillermo94]

(03-24-2025, 06:13 PM)criollo2mil Wrote:

(03-24-2025, 01:31 AM)Guillermo94 Wrote: Hi I had one question. I know in Mibiri pride one cub was around. Is any updates of cubs said?

I asked Matt about him last week.   He said it’s likely gone.  

The cub has not been seen the last few times he has seen the pride.

Hi. Sad hopefully he is in a better place. Reply

[criollo2mil]

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[FACR2212]

(03-24-2025, 08:31 PM)criollo2mil Wrote:

Very interesting to learn how to age lionesses based on nose colour. Using this method, we can determine that the litter of two cubs belongs to the Thanda Imp daughter (she has a full black nose, but she is clearly some years younger than the silver eye/broken tail female mother of the 3 cubs litter). Reply

[MrLoesoe]

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