Lion populations are untenable
outside designated reserves and national parks. Although the cause of the
decline is not fully understood, habitat loss and conflicts with humans are
currently the greatest causes of concern. Within Africa, the West African lion
population is particularly endangered. Lions live for 10–14 years in the wild,
while in captivity they can live longer than 20 years. In the wild, males
seldom live longer than 10 years, as injuries sustained from continual fighting
with rival males greatly reduce their longevity. They typically inhabit
savannas’ and grassland, although they may take to bush and forest. Lions are
unusually social compared to other cats. Highly distinctive, the male lion is
easily recognised by its mane, and its face is one of the most widely
recognised animal symbols in human culture. The white lion is not a distinct
subspecies, but a special morph with a genetic condition, leucism, that causes
paler colouration akin to that of the white tiger; the condition is similar to
melanism, which causes black panthers. The unusual cream colour of their coats
is due to a recessive gene. Reportedly, they have been bred in camps in South
Africa for use as trophies to be killed during canned hunts. Lions spend much
of their time resting and are inactive for about 20 hours per day. Although
lions can be active at any time, their activity generally peaks after dusk with
a period of socializing, grooming, and defecating. Intermittent bursts of
activity follow through the night hours until dawn, when hunting most often
takes place. They spend an average of two hours a day walking and 50 minutes
eating. Lions are the most socially inclined of all wild felids, most of which
remain quite solitary in nature. The lion is a predatory carnivore with two
types of social organization. Some lions are residents, living in groups
centering around related lionesses, called prides. Females form the stable
social unit in a pride and do not tolerate outside females; membership only
changes with the births and deaths of lionesses, although some females do leave
and become nomadic. Lions prefer to scavenge when the opportunity presents
itself, and scavenged food provides more than 50% of their diets. They scavenge
animals either dead from natural causes (disease) or killed by other predators,
and keep a constant lookout for circling vultures, being keenly aware that they
indicate an animal dead or in distress. The lioness is the one that does most
of the hunting for the pride. The male lion associated with the pride usually
stays and watches it’s young while waiting for the lionesses to return from the
hunt. Typically, several lionesses work together and encircle the herd from
different points. Once they have closed with a herd, they usually target the
closest prey. The prey usually is killed by strangulation, which can cause
cerebral ischemia or asphyxia (which results in hypoxemic, or "general",
hypoxia).Lions usually hunt in coordinated groups and stalk their chosen prey.
However, they are not particularly known for their stamina – for instance, a
lioness' heart makes up only 0.57% of her body weight (a male's is about 0.45%
of his body weight), whereas a hyena's heart is close to 1% of its body weight.
Thus, they only run fast in short bursts, and need to be close to their prey
before starting the attack. They take advantage of factors that reduce
visibility; many kills take place near some form of cover or at night. They
sneak up to the victim until they reach a distance of approximately 30 metres
(98 feet) or less.
Lions also attack domestic livestock; in India cattle
contribute significantly to their diet. Lions are capable of killing other
predators such as leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, and wild dogs, though (unlike
most felids) they seldom devour the competitors after killing them. A lion may
gorge itself and eat up to 30 kg (66 lb) in one sitting; if it is unable to
consume all the kill it will rest for a few hours before consuming more. On a
hot day, the pride may retreat to shade leaving a male or two to stand
guard.[83] An adult lioness requires an average of about 5 kg (11 lb) of meat
per day, a male about 7 kg (15 lb)
Because lionesses hunt in open spaces where they are easily
seen by their prey, cooperative hunting increases the likelihood of a
successful hunt; this is especially true with larger species. Teamwork also
enables them to defend their kills more easily against other large predators
such as hyenas, which may be attracted by vultures from kilometres away in open
savannas. Lionesses do most of the hunting; males attached to prides do not
usually participate in hunting, except in the case of larger quarry such as
giraffe and buffalo. In typical hunts, each lioness has a favoured position in
the group, either stalking prey on the "wing" then attacking, or
moving a smaller distance in the centre of the group and capturing prey in
flight from other lionesses. While
lions do not usually hunt people, some (usually males) seem to seek out human
prey; one well-publicised case includes the Tsavo man-eaters’, where 28
officially recorded railway workers building the Kenya-Uganda Railway were
taken by lions over nine months during the construction of a bridge over the
Tsavo River in Kenya in 1898. The hunter who killed the lions wrote a book
detailing the animals' predatory behaviour. The lions were larger than normal,
lacked manes, and one seemed to suffer from tooth decay. The infirmity theory,
including tooth decay, is not favoured by all researchers; an analysis of teeth
and jaws of man-eating lions in museum collections suggests that while tooth
decay may explain some incidents, prey depletion in human-dominated areas is a
more likely cause of lion predation on humans.
Most lionesses will have reproduced by the time they are
four years of age. Lions do not mate at any specific time of year, and the
females are polyestrous. As with other cats' penises, the male lion's
penis has spines that point backward. During withdrawal of the penis, the
spines rake the walls of the female's vagina, which may cause ovulation.A
lioness may mate with more than one male when she is in heat; during a
mating bout, which could last several days, the couple copulates twenty to
forty times a day, often forgoing eating. Lions reproduce very well in
captivity.
The lioness moves her cubs to a new den site several times a
month, carrying them one by one by the nape of the neck, to prevent scent from
building up at a single den site and thus avoiding the attention of predators
that may harm the cubs. Although
adult lions have no natural predators, evidence suggests that the majority die
violently from humans or other lions. Lions often inflict serious injuries
on each other, either members of different prides encountering each other in
territorial disputes, or members of the same pride fighting at a kill. Crippled
lions and lion cubs may fall victim to hyenas, leopards, or be trampled by
buffalo or elephants, and careless lions may be maimed when hunting prey.
No comments:
Post a Comment