2.  Size: 48 inches high  Weight: 330 to 500 pounds  Lifespan: 13 years in captivity.  Habitat: Grassy plans and open woodlands.  Diet: Carnivorous.  Gestation: About 105 days.  Predators: Humans

3.  Lions eat Buffalo, Zebra, Wildebeest, Warthogs, and different types of antelope.  Since Lions are carnivores.  They eat a lot of meat.

4.  Generally a tawny yellow, lions, like other species, tend, to be lighter in color in hot, arid areas and darker in areas of dense vegetation. Mature male lions are unique among the cats species for the thick mane of brown or black hair that encircles the head and neck. The tails of lions end in a horny spine covered with a tuft of hair.

5.  Lions are found in savannas, grasslands, dense bush and woodlands.

6.  Females do 85 to 90 percent of the prides hunting, while males patrol the territory and protect the pride, for which they take the lions share of the females prey. When resting, lions seem to enjoy good fellowship with lots of touching, head rubbing, licking and purring. But when it comes to food, each lion looks out for itself. Squabbling and fighting are common, with adult males usually eating first followed by the females and then the cub’s. Lions are the laziest of big cats. They usually spend 16 to 20 hours a day sleeping and resting devoting the remaining hours to hunting courting or protecting their territory. They keep in contact with one another by roaring loud enough to be heard up to five miles away. The pride usually remains intact until the males are challenged and successfully driven away or killed by other males, who then take over. Not all lions live prides. At maturity young males leave the units of their birth and spend several years as nomads before they become strong enough to take over a pride of their own. Some never stop wandering and continue to follow migrating herds but the nomadic is much more difficult with little time for resting or reproducing. The territorial males are the fathers of all the cub’s. A male will stay with their cub constantly until the cub is warm enough. Every 15 to 30 minutes over a period of four to five days a pair usually mates for less then a minute. Lions hunt for food at any hour they want. But at night they usually go and hunt for a large prey. They hunt together to increase their success rate since a prey can difficult to catch and it can outrun a single lion. The lions fan out along a broad front or semicircle to creep up on a prey. Once within striking distance they bound in among the startled animals knock one down and kill it with a bite to the neck or to the throat. Hunts are successful about half the time.

7.  Cooperative hunting enables to take the prey as large as wildebeests zebras buffalos young elephants rhinos hippos and giraffes any of which can provide several meals for the pride. Mice lizards tortoises warthogs antelopes and even crocodiles also form part of the lions diet. Because they often take over kills made by hyenas cheetahs and leopards scavenged food provides more than 50 percent of their diets in areas like the Serengeti plains.

8.  Litters consist of two or three cubs that weight about 3 pounds each. 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 the cub’s are raised together. A lioness will permit cub’s other than her own to suckle sometimes enabling a neglected infant to survive. Capable hunters by 2 years of age lions become fully grown between 5 and 6 years normally live about 13 years.

9.  The lion once ubiquitous across the plains of Africa faces extinction unless urgent action is taken to halt its conflict with humans.  They also want to kill lions because people believe that they are very dangerous animals.

10.  Lions have long killed in rituals of bravery, as hunting trophies and for their medicinal and magical powers. Although lions are now protected in many parts of Africa they were once considered to be stock raiding vermin and were killed on sight. In some areas livestock predation remains a severe problem.

11.  Did you know most lions drink water daily if available but can go four or five days without it. Lions in arid areas seem to obtain needed moisture from the stomach contents of their prey.  When males take over a pride they usually kill the cub’s. The females come into estrus and the new males sire other cub’s.