Lions

=Lions= There are two kinds of lions
 * African Lions
 * Asiatic Lions

[[image:Lion (female).jpg width="527" height="360" align="left" caption="African Lion (female) (Source: Wikipedia)"]]African Lions
African Lions live in the grasslands. They are mostly nocturnal and they can see very well in the dark. They like to sleep in the shade of a tree during the daytime. They are very dangerous predators.

A group of lions is called a //pride of lions.// A female lion is called a lioness.

Lions are the only members of the cat family where males and females look different. The male lion has a dark brown mane, and the female doesn't. Most lions are sandy coloured so they can be hard to spot in the dry grasses when they stalk their prey.

Lions can grow up to 2.5 metres long, and weigh up to 250 kilograms. They are very powerful hunters. They have strong jaws and razor-sharp teeth, and they have very powerful muscles.

The female lion (lioness) does all the hunting. Females hunt in a pack, and spread out around their prey so that it can't get away. They can run fast for short distances. First they use their front legs to grab the prey, then they grab it by the throat in their jaws, so that it can't breathe while it bleeds to death. Then they tear the prey to bits with their super-sharp teeth.

Lions mostly eat medium sized mammals like zebras, wildebeest, warthogs and buffalo. Sometimes they hunt deer like gazelles or springboks, and they will also kill baby giraffes and even baby elephants if they get the chance..

The male lion is lazy. He doesn't do any hunting -, but he stays and looks after the cubs while the female finds the food. He waits for the lioness to kill the prey and then he takes what he wants.

Male lions get into fights with other male lions, to prove who is the King of the Pride.

[[image:Asiatic Lion (male).jpg width="320" height="480" align="left" caption="Asiatic lion (male) (Source: Wikipedia)"]]Asiatic Lions
Indian lions are very rare. They are endangered because their habitat has been destroyed and many of them were shot by hunters in the 19th century. They only live in dry forests in the Gir national park in India, and there are only about 400 left.

Source: Wikipedia [] and [], and Dangerous Creatures of the Grasslands, by Helen Bateman and Jayne Denshire, Macmillan 2005