Lion

The first time I saw a wild lioness was in Kenya's Maasai Mara last year. It was fast asleep on a large slab of granite and least bothered by several tourist vehicles that stopped to watch. I was disappointed. I had hoped to catch its eyes on camera and this one's eyes remained firmly shut.

Later, I found out the reason. Lions sleep up to twenty hours a day. They hunt at night, or very early in the morning. With the abundance of game in the park, she was napping after a full meal.

During the trip I saw several more lions. One had climbed a tree and was relaxing there. Three of its paws and its tail dangled from the H-shaped branch formation. The fourth paw on the branch maintained its balance, as did the rather large belly that dangled from its frame. Early morning one day, far away, I saw a group of lions around a large red object, probably a wildebeest they had killed. Later that day, I saw a lion pair mating. After the act the lion roared and the lioness cowered low in the ground. Another lioness behind a bush was quite alert and scanning for prey. Several others slept, not bothered by flies that covered their face.

Lions are members of the cat family, Felidae, a family that also includes tigers, leopards, jaguars and our house cat. Male lions have a magnificent mane giving them a royal look, hence the name King of the Jungle. The male can be up to twelve feet long and weigh up to 500 pounds; females are smaller. A group of lions is called a pride. It includes a male lion, a harem of several lionesses, and cubs. When they grow older, male cubs are seen as a threat by the leader and forced to leave the pride. Younger males form their own groups and work towards displacing leaders in other prides. Lions are apex predators of the jungle, feeding on large mammals such as antelopes, buffaloes, giraffes and zebras.

In Cry of the Kalahari, authors Mark and Delia wrote about lions. The authors lived in Southern Africa's Kalahari Desert for seven years and became close to lions, leopards, and brown hyenas. In the book they describe the social behaviour of lions in great detail.

Take, for example, communication. By following a pride of lions, they discovered ways in which lions communicated with each other.

Two methods of their communication are obvious. They roar to locate each other after they spread out for a hunt, to warn other prides to stay away, and to send mating signals. And they use smell (by urinating, for example) to mark territory and inform other lions about their whereabouts.

But the authors also discover how lions used body language to communicate while watching three lionesses lazing near a river. A lone antelope was crossing the river. The older lioness spotted the antelope but the other two did not. So the older lioness cocked her ears forward, lifted her head and twitched the tip of her tail, as if to say, "Hey, over there!" The younger lionesses got the hint, spotted the antelope and pounced on it within seconds.

The lions I saw at Masai Mara presented a disarming and relaxed appearance. But that can also be said of many dangers of the world. They look harmless but pounce on the unsuspecting when the moment is right. And so I will keep my distance from lions.

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