Lion

 
Setswana Name:  Tau
 
Scientific Name: 

Panthera leo
 

The magnificent African lion is the largest of Africa's big cats and is primarily active at night, sleeping away most of the day to escape the intense heat. Mostly ground dwelling, they sometimes climb trees to get away from marauding flies and catch the cool breezes.
When resting, lions seem to enjoy good fellowship with lots of touching, head rubbing, licking and purring.

Male lions weigh between 150-225 kg and females range from 120-150 kg with a lifespan between 10-14 years. Males reach maturity at three years and peak at four- five years when they are ready to take over a pride. From the age of eight years a male may lose dominance and be ousted from the pride by a younger male.
 
The Lion's body colour ranges from reddish-grey to pale tawny with lighter underparts. Although faint spots are present on the sides of cubs, these are usually lost by adulthood. Tail is shorthaired and the same colour as the rest of the body, but has a dark tip.
 

Only male lions boast manes, the impressive fringe of long hair that encircles their heads. Males defend the pride's territory, which may include 259 square kilometers of grasslands, scrub, or open woodlands. Territories are marked by urine, dropping and by earth scratching. The mighty roars of the lion are audible over kilometres and also serve to indicate that an area is occupied

The lion has developed a social system based on teamwork, division of labor and an extended but closed family unit – called a pride. The average pride consists of about fifteen individuals: five to ten females, their young, and two or three territorial males. These are usually brothers or pride mates who have formed a coalition to protect their females.  All of a pride's lionesses are related, and female cubs typically stay with the group as they age. Young males eventually leave and establish their own prides by taking over a group headed by another male. The number of lions in a pride will vary significantly based on the number of prey animals that live or migrate through the pride's territory.
 
In Botswana prides are usually six or fewer individuals, whereas average pride size in Kruger National Park is about twelve. Most of the lion’s activities take place at night and during the cooler daylight hours.
 

Reproduction
Lion mating behaviour is legendary with a couple frequently copulating (up to forty times a day) and over several days. Occasionally the female may mate with other males in the pride resulting in cubs of the same litter having different fathers.
Cubs are born after a gestation period of 110 days, with female lions giving birth in a den site, typically located in a rock outcrop or in dense vegetation. A female will on average give birth to three cubs that are between two to four pounds in weight. Lionesses only return to the pride when cubs are four-eight weeks old. However, she will only rejoin with the pride if there are no cubs older than three months already present. As a lioness allows any pride cub to suckle, the presence of older cubs would prevent younger cubs from obtaining milk. Some mothers carefully nurture the young; others may neglect or abandon them, especially when food is scarce. Usually two or more females in a pride give birth about the same time, and the cubs are raised together. A lioness will permit cubs other than her own to suckle, sometimes enabling a neglected infant to survive. Cubs may remain with the mother for two years or longer.
There is no fixed breeding season for lions.
Because a nursing lioness will come into heat a few weeks after the loss of cubs, males with newly won prides will often kill existing cubs, enabling them to sire their own.

Habitat
The lion has a very wide habitat tolerance, from desert fringe to woodland or open savanna, but is absent from equatorial forest. Lions are widely distributed throughout Botswana, except in the settled parts of the eastern Botswana.

Food
Cooperative hunting enables lions to take prey as large as buffaloes, rhinos, hippos and giraffes. However, scavenged food provides more than 50% of their diets—lions will often take over kills made by other carnivores. Female lions are the pride's primary hunters. They often work together to prey upon antelopes, zebras, wildebeest, and other large animals of the open grasslands. Many of these animals are faster than lions, so teamwork pays off.

After the hunt, the group effort often degenerates to squabbling over the sharing of the kill, with cubs at the bottom of the pecking order. At times of prey scarcity, high juvenile mortality rates occur, as hungry females may not even share with their offspring. Young lions do not help to hunt until they are about a year old. Lions will hunt alone if the opportunity presents itself, and they also steal kills from hyenas or wild dogs.

 
Unless provoked, lions rarely attack humans but it is useful to know the warning signs: an angry lion will drop into a crouch, flatten its ears and give vent to growls, meanwhile flicking the tail-tip rapidly from side to side. Just prior to a charge the tail is usually jerked up and down.
 
Lions have been celebrated throughout history for their courage and strength. They once roamed most of Africa and parts of Asia and Europe. Today they are found only in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, except for one very small population of Asian lions that survives in India's Gir Forest.
Lions have long been killed in rituals of bravery, as hunting trophies, and for their medicinal and magical powers. Habitat loss and conflict with humans are the lion’s greatest threat.