Answers to these questions are provided by Dr. Packer at the University of Minnesota or by Peyton West, a Ph.D. student in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. Peyton has been studying lions since 1995 as part of her dissertation research with Dr. Craig Packer. Peyton has worked with Dr. Packer on a variety of projects and has collected her own data on lions during two field seasons in Tanzania. Peyton is particularly interested in lion communication and how it mediates conflicts between males and females, especially regarding parental care.

How many teeth does a lion have?

A lion has 30 teeth.

How much can an adult lion eat in one feeding?

The female lion captures most of the mid-sized prey (wildebeest, zebra, etc.) but the males typically catch the really big prey (buffalo & giraffe). They can eat a lot at a single sitting: a male can eat 43 kg in a day; a female may eat over 25 kg. But their average intake is only about 8-9 kg per day.

Is the research you do with the lions in the Serengeti harmful to them?

We are very careful that none of our work is harmful to the lions.

Much of our work is designed to directly help them such as the removal of snares from lions. We use radio collars on some lions, but radio collars allow us to track the lions and keep close tabs on population numbers so we can be ready to act if numbers go down. Radio collars certainly helped in 1994 in detecting the emergence and spread of canine distemper in the lion population when one-third of the lions in the Serengeti died from this devastating disease.

The outbreak of canine distemper led to the creation of Project Lifelion which helps protect lions both from canine distemper and rabies.

How may cubs does a female lion typically give birth to and when are they weaned?

Answer:

Females can have up to four cubs at a time although litters of two or three are more common. Cubs are usually weaned by the age of 8 months.

How often do lions have to defend their territories or pride areas?

Answer:

The length of time a male is resident with a pride varies but averages about 2 years. It is common to see from one to seven males resident with a pride at any given time. If resident males are defeated by new males, they leave the pride and typically never return.

Females have to defend their pride range against other females approximately every four days. Males probably have to defend less often against other males because nomadic males are relatively rare. In the Serengeti, the time of year makes a big difference. Males probably encounter strange males more frequently in the wet season. This is because nomadic males often follow the migrating wildebeest up north during the dry season and return to the Serengeti in the wet season.

Why do male lions have manes?

Answer:

Surprisingly, there is still no sure answer to the question of why lions have manes. In the past people thought that the mane acted as protection in fights against other males. But lions often fight by biting each other on the back. Another possibility is that the mane acts as a signal to other lions.

Lions are the only cats with manes, and only males have manes. Signals that are only found in males, such as the peacock's tail as another example, are often shown to be attractive to females. Such signals may give the female information about whether the male would make a good mate.

We are testing this idea with the Serengeti lions by using large, toy lions with varying manes. A picture of these "dummies" can be seen on our Lion Mane Research web page.

Do Lions Purr like house cats?

Answer:

Lions do occasionally purr, but they are different from house cats in that purring is not common or important in their social life. Also, lions make a sound only as they exhale instead of continuously the way house cats do.