The world according to the lions

Born in the Savannah

When she opened her eyes for the first time, ten days after her birth, the little lioness with her striped coat and thick, furry paws discovered a vast plain, covered with tall grass stretching to the horizon and dotted here and there with solitary acacia trees. The rains had stopped. That morning, the entire savanna was green all the way to the mist-shrouded mountains and buzzed with a thousand birdsong. Near the watering holes, heads bowed, gazelles and zebras drank the ochre water in long gulps. Giraffes walked in the distance, and farther still, a herd of elephants. It was a very lovely season to be born.

Learning and Hiding

With her sister and two brothers, she would sometimes be left alone all day. Their mother would go off to hunt. Hidden in a thicket atop a small hill, the four lion cubs wouldn’t move a muscle, silent, listening for the slightest sound. Threatening hyenas passed by, snickering, and herds of buffalo with deadly hooves, and the cubs flattened themselves even more. In the evening, finally, a low rumble warned them: the lioness was returning, a carcass in her mouth, and the cubs threw themselves at her to nurse and taste their first meat.

Social Big Cats

Today, the little lioness is a few months older. She has lost her stripes. She has just rejoined the pride that their mother had left to give birth in a sheltered spot. The other females welcomed her and licked her head with their huge, rough tongues. The four lion cubs play with children their own age. They roll around in the dust, growling like the adults. When they’re hungry, they can nurse from any lactating lioness in the group, because everyone protects them, everyone loves them. But if the play gets too rough, if one of the cubs screams too loudly, their mother immediately calls them to order with a growl and, with a glance, signals the danger. There are three males lying under the baobab tree, giants with dark manes who look like brothers and must not be disturbed.

The Battle of the Lion Kings

And they are indeed brothers, young and strong. They arrived here as a group of four a few seasons ago, before the little lioness was born. One of them died in battle during the power struggle, when the older males were driven out of the territory. The victor of the battles is undoubtedly her father; he is the one who roars the loudest to the farthest reaches of the horizon, letting out a tremendous sound, his flanks hollowed out, his chest thrust forward.

When he lets out his roar—mouth wide open, fangs gleaming, facing the dark red sun—the little lioness feels his voice vibrate through every bone in her body and purrs softly. Nearby, her brothers try to imitate the great male with comical meows.

She likes to listen to her father, for he is her protector. He appears when things go wrong, or when the prey is too big for the female pride. He prowls around the love-struck lionesses as they seduce him and his two lieutenants by arching their backs. As soon as they arrive, no one fears attacks from hyenas anymore, or even from elephants if they get angry.

The Wandering Knights

The little lioness looks at her brothers, so young and still without manes. They too will leave one day. They too will fight rivals and roar to rally their pack. Their mother will gradually refuse to help them find food; their father will roar right in their faces and swat at them with his paws. They will leave. With heads bowed and tails swishing, her two brothers will drift away from the pride and set off on an adventure. Another young lion might join them along the way—a childhood friend or a wandering male. They will feed on carrion, fighting jackals for it, before reaching the borders of a new territory.

They will face off against the dominant male and his own coalition, and if they defeat him after fierce battles, they will have to kill all the cubs. This is a necessary task to perpetuate the bloodline, but one that the mothers fiercely oppose—sometimes successfully.

The Wisdom of Lionesses

The little lioness, for her part, will remain with her mother, within the pride, for the rest of her life. Unless forced to leave by fire, disease, famine, or hunters, they will stay together.

As for the magnificent lion roaring tonight, he will eventually be dethroned. Other younger, more vigorous males will come to replace him. From then on, it will not be her father who approaches the young lioness when she comes of age, but a new lover full of arrogance and audacity. She turns her large orange eyes toward her mother. How beautiful she is, too, in her solid fawn coat! Her whole body is muscle, nerve, and power. But her mind is a tangle of attack strategies and knowledge acquired from the elders, which she in turn passes on to her own children.

Tonight, she will take her three eldest daughters with the pack on an expedition north. Those sisters were born two years earlier, and the little lioness envies them. But she is far too small to take part in these hunts, which are always difficult, always risky, and which fail most of the time.

These hunts may seem cruel, but without them, the adorable lion cubs would simply starve to death.

Stalking hunts and strategies

So, lionesses are constantly devising tactics to minimize the risk of failure. Subtle relay-style strategies are employed, as well as coordinated and complex stalking approaches that must account for wind direction, the sun’s position, the speed, and the presumed flight path of the prey—which they observe and sometimes track for weeks during major migrations.

Males participate little in these group hunts, except when it comes to taking down a buffalo or an elephant. They prefer to feed alone in the evening and are the first to help themselves to the feast brought back by the lionesses.

A lioness’s life is short, fourteen to twenty years at most. Yet knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next, and it is essential to the survival of all. Tonight, the little lioness’s eyelids are heavy. She has played so much, learned so much today! So she lies down in the sand in the shade of a termite mound, with other cubs. Sleep overtakes her immediately, carrying her off into wonderful dreams…

What could a little lioness possibly dream about? For she dreams a lot, like all big cats. No doubt of a peaceful savanna, populated by zebras and wildebeests, filled with intelligent, well-fed cubs, victorious companions, and successful hunts. The happy world of the savannah that her ancestors knew—and that she too would like to know—unchanged forever…