lion

The lion is one of the big cats in the genus Panthera and a member of the family Felidae. Living in the grasslands’ scrub’ and open woodlands of sub Saharan Africa the lion is the second largest cat in the world. It is dwarfed slightly by the tiger which is closely related and has a very similar body type. Unlike other cats lions are very social animals. Lions are large felines that are traditionally depicted as the king of the jungle. These big cats once roamed Africa’ Europe and Asia. Male lions are generally larger than females and have a distinctive mane of hair around their heads. The mane's function is to make the male look more impressive to females and more intimidating to other males. The mane also protects the male's neck during fights over territory or mating rights. African lions eat large animals that they find in the grasslands’ including antelopes’ zebras and wildebeest. Asiatic lions eat large animals as well’ such as goats’    nilgai’ chital’ sambhar and buffaloes. They are also known to eat smaller animals. Asian lions divide themselves into 2 prides. The females have a pride and the males have a pride. They only come together during mating season. With both types of lion prides the females stay put. All of the females in a pride are usually related to each other because females tend to stay with the pride in which they are born. Males on the other hand wander off to create their own pride when they are old enough. Mostly animals get eaten by lions not the other way around. That's because lions are at the top of their food chain and at the very center of their food web. Lions have almost no predators. Old sick lions are sometimes attacked killed and eaten by hyenas. At 4 to 5 years old males and females are ready to mate. The female has a gestation period of around four months. She will give birth to her young away from others and hide the cubs for the first 6 weeks of their lives. At birth the cubs are only around 4 lbs. 1.6 kg. They are also completely dependent on their mother. All of the females in a group of lions mate at the same time. After the first 6 weeks the cubs are taken care of by all of the females and will often nurse from females other than their mother. These big cats once roamed Africa Asia and Europe. They are found in only 2 areas of the world and are classified into two subspecies. Asiatic lions live in India's Gir Forest African lions live in central and southern Africa. Some lions sleep less like the lions in Addo National Park in South Africa that sleep about 14 hours a day. This may be because they don’t have established social groups they need to spend more time protecting themselves from other lions and elephants that could trample them. To escape the hot sun lions tend to find sleeping spots under the shade of bushes.