There are about 2,500 lions in the Serengeti ecosystem. This is the biggest concentration in a national park of Africa's largest carnivore (meat-eater) and the lion is the animal most visitors want to see on their safari.
The last remaining lions in Europe were killed in Greece (which gave the original Greek name leon to the species) around AD 100 and they were exterminated from Palestine around the 12th century. In Asia, a few can still be found in northern India's Gir Peninsula.
In Africa, too, their range has been severely curtailed. They are now extinct in north Africa, having disappeared from Tunisia and Algeria around 1891 and from Morocco in 1920.
In sub-Saharan Africa, where the largest concentration of lions survives, their range has been gradually reduced as humans have expanded their own. Once they were common in South Africa's Cape Province; today, outside zoos and reserves, they have vanished in that area.
They hunt mainly at night but are easily seen in the daytime. In Serengeti, they may be heard roaring
at night, although one must try to differentiate between the sound they make and the sound of the several
thousand ostriches. But such differentiation is not always easy in the befuddled condition between deep sleep and total consciousness.
Lions are lethargic animals, showing an aversion to exerting themselves except when intent on a kill. Even then they can be inefficient, certainly when compared to hyena, and intended prey may bear morning-after scars showing where lions have hit and missed.
Most usually, the visitor will find lions lolling about or sleeping in the shade under trees or shrubs, usually in prides, sometimes in small all-male groups. But, despite their apparent passivity, they can swiftly become very aggressive if disturbed, wounded or otherwise remotely threatened.
Unlike most other carnivores (notably cheetah and leopard) lions are social animals, living and hunting in prides which can number a dozen or more and which may embrace several age groups.
Prides are usually found in areas where there is abundant game, such as buffalo, zebra and wildebeest. The lioness is the nucleus of the pride although there may also be a dominant male. Fights between rival males for a pride occur and can sometimes result in death or serious injury to one of the combatants.
Male lions become sexually mature at about two years old but usually have to wait another three years to mate. Females become pregnant for the first time around the age of four and produce litters every two years until they are about 15 years old.
Copulation between lions is notable for its foreplay and frequency. Courtship is initiated by either sex with the pair remaining together and the male following the female at all times and resting beside her.
Copulation occurs about every 15 minutes, lasting around a minute, over a period of several hours. During breaks the lion and lioness will lie beside each other or walk short distances before the next mating session.
The male may gently stroke the female on the shoulder, neck or back with his tongue to encourage submissiveness; he may seize her by the scruff of the neck (a painless, largely symbolic, act) during copulation, and the lioness can be heard purring.
Fertility is low and the number of cubs an impregnated female produces averages only 2.6. Cubs suckle for six to seven months and have a high mortality rate - as high as 60 percent in some recorded cases - due to scarcity of food, abandonment, disease and other predators.
The average weight of an adult male lion is around 190 kg, with females averaging 126 kg. Adult males, who stand 1.25 metres at the shoulder, reach their maximum weight in seven years, females in five to six years.
The colour of adults is sandy or tawny on the upper body and white underneath. The backs of the rounded ears are black in sharp contrast to the body colour. The tail, roughly half the length of the combined head and body, can be black-tipped.
Adult males have a mane up to 160 mm in length that with advanced years, can become black. The mane of the younger males tends to be sandy or tawny although climatic variations can affect colouring. Maneless male lions are rare.
Lions have five digits (toes) on the front feet and four on the rear. Each toe is equipped with very sharp, scimitar-shaped, retractable claws. These claws, and the formidable lower jaw, are the main killing weapons.
Male lions rarely participate in the hunt, leaving this to the lionesses. But once a kill is made they take first priority, with the lionesses having to wait until the male has eaten his fill. Cubs come last.
