The male lion's life, from the moment he was driven out of the pride at a young age, his fate began to turn

But in fact, the male lion can have such a position from the line of life and death struggle out, and even when the so-called "lion king", the male lion's scenery is only the surface. Why do you say so? Let's talk about the growth of young male lions as they leave their pride.

The first turning point in the fate of young male lions

Lions are typically packed animals, usually, there is only one adult male in pride, and the rest are females, although some large pride may have 2-3 males, even so, there is a difference in the ranking of the males, with the strongest male still having more status and say than the other males.

The female lions do not have a fixed estrus period, but theirs is usually only 4-7 days, during which the male lion has to mate with all the adult females, and it only takes about three and a half months for the females to give birth to their cubs after the mating is complete.

Females typically give birth to 2-4 lion cubs, at which point the cubs are the same as the male cubs, and they spend about 6 months nursing with their dams, during which time the cubs may face their first twist of fate - life or death.

This test of life or death is not a competition between lion cubs, because the adult females in the pride will work together to nurse the cubs, so they rarely die of starvation, this test is from the lion king, because the lion king may be challenged by other males, once the lion king loses, the first thing the new male lion will do is kill the lion cubs while they are still nursing.

The second turning point for young male lions

If a young male lion is born and does not encounter a change of lion king, he will spend 3 years of his life in the pride with the young lioness, during which they start practicing with the small prey brought back by the lioness from 6 months of weaning, and then follow the lioness until they master the hunting skills themselves, and after 3 years have passed, the young male lion is not the little one, but already has a weight of over The lion cub is not the same little one, but has more than 100 kilograms of weight.

However, at this time the male lion is still a "yellow boy", the mane on the neck color and body color is about the same, but also relatively short. However, at this time they will be driven away by the lion king, zoologists believe that this is a way to prevent their offspring to challenge themselves, but this way to avoid the occurrence of inbreeding, after all, the male lion has been sexually mature.

This is the second turning point for the young male lion, that is, from the original collective hunting, someone to take care of, into a single fight, opened the wandering life.

The life of a male lion after leaving the pride

The life of a male lion after leaving the pride is not necessarily good, it depends on the way they leave because there are two reasons for a male lion to leave the pride: to be driven away by his father and to be driven away by other males.

Let's start with the latter case

When the lion king is challenged and defeated by other males, the new lion king no longer chooses to kill the young lions, because at this time the young lions already have a certain level of combat power, and it is not cost-effective to kill them, so the old lion king will be driven out with the young males.

At this point, they are not alone in the wandering male lions, but will be with their father group together to survive, in Africa's famous "No Chi Union" is a good example, No Chi is the name of an adult male lion, originally had its lion group, but was defeated after the challenge, together with their five sons were expelled.

This way of survival is the most comfortable for male lions who have just reached adulthood because they are surrounded by old male lions with rich combat experience. Under the leadership of the old male lions, the mortality rate of the young male lions is very low, and the growth rate is also the fastest, they will be like the lionesses in the pride, fighting together, growing together, and will soon form a force to be reckoned with in the grassland.

Also taking the Nochi Alliance as an example, the young male lions, led by their father, took over 1000 square kilometers of land and successfully controlled 9 feelings of pride in just over a year's time in the east and west.

Secondly, let's talk about the most common situation

In reality, a situation like Nochai Union is very rare. In most cases, only about 3 years old male lions will be expelled by their fathers and live a wandering life from then on, which is the beginning of the miserable fate of male lions.

First of all, most of the expelled male lions are usually a, they are from the original cooperation, into a single fight, lack of combat experience, they are likely to be unable to catch prey hungry, or even will be killed in the hunt.

In addition to the risk of hunting, wandering male lions also have to face the harassment of other predators or even attack, especially the spotted hyena, as the African savannah "second brother", spotted hyenas and lions are mortal enemies, they will not hesitate to hunt once they find each other at a disadvantage.

For the survival of the two animals in the same habitat, the spotted hyena is very knowledgeable about male lions, they will analyze each other according to whether it is the lion's territory and the size of the other party and other features are not stray male lions, once they are found to be they will gather in the vicinity of their companions, the stray male lions to kill.

In these two cases, most of the male lions will be eliminated, after the stray male lions want to survive there are two ways: strong enough and alliance, generally male lions will choose the latter, at this time, the stray male lion alliance appeared.

Once formed the stray male lion alliance, their chances of survival will be greatly improved because cooperation can not only hunt larger prey but also can form a good deterrent ability to spotted hyenas so that after 1-2 years of growth, the stray male lions ushered in the third turning point - challenge the lion king.

Usually, a single stray male lion will choose a pride with only one male lion, while the stray male lion alliance either disintegrates before the challenge or must challenge a large pride, after all, only a large pride can accommodate multiple male lions at the same time, at this time, they fought a bloody battle, once the failure may die, because even if not killed by the lion king, injuries during the battle will make their chances of survival greatly reduced, of course, success Of course, after the success, they will have their lion pride.

The seemingly beautiful male lion

Although male lions seem to be very beautiful when they have pride the hardships behind them are rarely seen. First of all, the reason male lions rarely engage in hunting is that they have an equally important job - patrolling their territory. Patrolling their territory is not simply a matter of wandering around, as there are always stray male lions and hyenas eyeing their territory or the young lions in it, so the lions patrolling their territory usually return covered in wounds as they fight off intruders.

Secondly, rather than the male lion having dominion over the pride, it is better to say that each has its role, because the male lion does not have the right to order the lioness, even in the matter of mating, the male lion also has to look at the face of the lioness.

Third, the male lion can stay in the pride for 1-3 years, and some are unlucky enough to be challenged by other male lions just after they have acquired the pride, and even if they are not then challenged, the average male lion after 3 years is about 8 years old, knowing that the average life expectancy of wild male lions is between 8-10 years, so at this time, the older male lions will be defeated once they are challenged and thus expelled, and the expelled older male lions, with injuries and The expelled male lion, wounded and physically exhausted, awaits only its gradual wasting, and then death.

Summary

Young male lions will be expelled from the pride at the age of about 3 years old and live a wandering life, a life that is actually on the edge of life and death, because they have to face too many threats, inexperienced and insufficient combat power, a large part of them will be eliminated in the process of wandering.

Although the male lions will have their pride, but the title of "lion king" is at most about 3 years, and after their old age will often end up very miserable.