Lions silently stalk or ambush their unsuspecting prey, most often with a short sprint, attacking from behind. Lions are stimulated ovulators; the female does not ovulate until she is stimulated to do so by lots of sex.
As a result lions will mate roughly every 15 to 20 minutes for two or three days 200 to 300 times in succession. Lions and lionesses play different roles in the life of the pride.
Male young disperse from 23 to 274 km, while females disperse from 9 to 140 km. Males reach sexual maturity at about 3 years of age and females at 2 1/2 years. Males may be upto 310 cm in length and weigh around 900 kg. Females are much smaller, 200 cm (291 according to Loughlin and Nelson, 1987) and they can weigh upto 300 kg.
Males usually weigh 175 to 190 kg and females about 120 kg. The lion has a wide habitat tolerance and is absent only from extensive desert regions and tropical rain forest.
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. Lions live in open country, in groups known as prides, consisting of from 6 to 30 members headed by one or two mature males.
They hunt co-operatively and, while the females are better hunters and do most of the work bringing down the prey, the males eat first, followed by the females, and lastly the cubs get their share. Lion of Siddhas offers two texts, Padampa Sangye's biography, and a rare collection of his teachings, recorded almost a thousand years ago. Both are previously untranslated.
Lions have very short, dense fur covering their body that is generally a light tawny brown in color. The tip of the tail and the mane on males typically have longer fur, that can be black, brown, red, golden, or tawny in color. Lions remained widespread elsewhere until the mid-19th century when the advent of firearms led to its extinction over large areas.
In 1944, the corpse of a lioness was found on the banks of Karun river, Khuzestan province, Iran . Lion names are given to any murran who kills a lion.
Prides vary in size, from as few as four to as many as 40. Each pride consists of a group of related females, their young, and one to five adult males who cooperatively defend the pride against incoming males. Pride mates associate in sub-groups within the pride. Female pride mates are related to each other.
Females do 85-90% of the hunting, usually by setting up an ambush into which they drive the prey. The kill is not shared equally within a pride, and at times of prey scarcity, high juvenile mortality rates occur, as hungry females may not even share with their offspring. Females can come into heat at any time of year. The male and female associate for only this brief period.
Mountain Lions are solitary, strongly territorial hunters who, unlike most cat species, may be active during the day. Normally, lions are very elusive, and people rarely get more than a brief glimpse of a Mountain Lion in the wild. Mountain lions that threaten people are immediately killed. Those that prey on pets or livestock can be killed by a property owner after the required depredation permit is secured.
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