The Lion 'African King' – Why Mating Sessions Rarely Last More Than a Minute?

Approximately 12.4 thousand years ago, lions began to appear in eastern and southern Africa, becoming the dominant species in Africa. Lions are the most successful species among modern cats in terms of evolution. Their evolution reached its peak during the Quaternary period, and they were once widely distributed in Africa, Eurasia, and the North American continent. During the last Ice Age, they even invaded the south and central parts of South America.

However, it might be because of the conflict between two dominant species, lions have never formed a group in China. Initially, lions were without mane. About 300,000 years ago, lions with mane began to appear, such as Cave lions and American lions. Compared with lions with mane and without mane, lions with mane had more evolutionary advantages, which made them gradually replace lions without mane in western Europe and Africa.

Lions are the only cat species with two sexes. Male lions have mane, while female lions do not. Lions have the largest skull and height among cats. Male lions are generally larger than female lions.

Lions are group animals. A lion group consists of 8 to 30 members, with an average of 17 heads. It usually includes several generations of female lions, at least one adult male lion, and some growing lion cubs. Female lions form the core of the lion group, and they rarely leave their birthplace. A lion group includes 2 adult male lions, but there is only one of them who is the leader. Adult male lions do not usually stay with the lion group; they often roam around the perimeter of their territory, guarding the entire territory.

Because of the need for survival, lions chose to live in groups. Unlike tigers that live in forests, many large animals that live in herds on the grasslands, such as elephants, buffaloes, rhinos, and zebras, are more numerous.

Cooperative hunting is far more efficient than solitary hunting, and its success rate is 30% higher than solitary hunting. This is something that solitary cats cannot compare with.

Especially lions' running speed is not fast, although their running speed can reach more than 60 kilometers per hour, and their sprint burst speed is also very fast, but their prey are often faster than them, so they can only use group encirclement tactics.

The prey range of the lion group is broad, often hunting African buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, but they prefer to hunt medium-sized ungulates such as zebras, buffaloes, and other types of antelopes. The fact that lions prefer to hunt medium-sized ungulates like zebras and buffaloes is a way to make up for the uneven distribution of resources, because once the prey is captured, the lions in a lion group will not be as united as when capturing prey, but they will become selfish and cruel, fighting over food and roaring at their companions…

In addition to this, there is an important reason, which is population breeding. There are many carnivorous animals living on the grassland. It is difficult for a single mother to raise cubs. For example, hyenas often steal cubs. Like solitary cats such as leopards and cheetahs, their cubs are often killed or eaten by lions and hyenas.

Hyenas failed to steal cubs, and were counterattacked by lions.

While a group of female lions can resist foreign male lions and protect their cubs, a male lion will kill cubs older than 6 months to establish its prestige when it successfully challenges the lion king. However, female lions can form a protective wall by jointly defending, driving away the male lions, and preventing the cubs from being killed.

Similarly, in order to ensure survival and breeding, lion groups will try to protect their territories and prevent other lion groups from hunting in their territories. From some aspects, the lion group's territory is like a precious family legacy, and future generations must do their best to protect its integrity, even at the cost of their lives.

The lion group is more like a matriarchal society because the female lions are relatively stable, while male lions are constantly changing.

Although we often argue about who is stronger between lions and tigers, in terms of mating, they are roughly equal. They can only continue for about 30 seconds. The mating period for lions usually lasts 4-5 days.

In order for female lions to get pregnant, they need to continue mating 200 to 300 times within one week, and some need to continue mating 3000 times to succeed.

This is because the reproductive capacity of lions is very weak, and the pregnancy rate is very low. In the food chain, energy supply is in a pyramid shape. The higher the level of the food chain, the less energy there is.

Therefore, the lions' energy consumption must be limited. The number of species in the food chain must be limited to maintain the balance of the ecosystem.

For example, if lions' reproductive capacity is stronger than that of zebras, zebras will be eaten to extinction, and lions will also fall into a situation where there is no food to eat, and the food chain will fall into a vicious cycle.

So in order to maintain the survival of the entire population, the more dominant species in the pyramid must restrict their numbers, and the weaker species must increase their population through more reproductive capacity to increase their chances of survival.

This is also why lions sometimes need to continue mating 3000 times to succeed. The number of cubs born to female lions is not large, and their gestation period is generally 100-119 days. Usually 2-4 cubs are born, but in order to ensure that they grow up as excellent genes, if a foreign male lion successfully challenges the lion king, it will kill cubs older than 6 months. The mother will try to escape with them.

In addition, the competition between different lion groups is extremely fierce. Many young lions and adult lions die in fights between different lion groups. It is estimated that only one-third of lion cubs survive to adulthood. Although male cubs are more than female cubs at birth, male cubs have the highest death rate and often die in fights between different lion groups, which also ensures that the number of lions expands and limits the number of lions.

It can be said that nature is fair, and there is a gene in the genes of living things that inhibits the number of living things, maintaining a relatively balanced number of species. This ensures the balance of the ecosystem.