I once stole a lion’s girlfriend. I was in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, experimenting with audio playback as a means of deciphering lion communication. This involved blasting the recording of a lion’s roar into another male’s territory and waiting for a response. This rather audacious line of scientific enquiry resulted in three lions – one female and two males – racing over to our Land Rover to investigate. Show Advertisement The males quickly got bored when they failed to find a rival and padded off. The female, however, pinned us to the spot, legs akimbo, for over two hours. She was in oestrus and, in addition to mating with her consorts, she also wanted to mate with me. Apparently, this was nothing special for a lioness: females are known to mate one hundred times with multiple males during their fertile period.  Mating lions. © Ihab Henri/500px/Getty I was surprised to discover the licentious nature of the female lion. At university I was taught that males, with their bountiful supply of cheap sperm, are wired for promiscuity whereas females, with their limited number of costly eggs, must be choosy and chaste. Someone clearly forgot to inform the lioness of this 'universal law'. The main problem with this neat classification is, it’s wrong. We now understand that females from species as diverse as langurs, lizards and lobsters employ a wanton sexual strategy of multiple mating. Female promiscuity increases the chances of genetic or immune compatibility, which results in healthier offspring. You may also like:
The lioness has an additional maternal motive for her wanton nature: to protect her vulnerable cubs from murder. Lions are the only social species of big cat. In Africa, they live in prides of around 4-6 related females, their dependent offspring and a coalition of two males. When fresh males take over a pride, they often kill any unweaned young. This stops them wasting energy raising cubs that aren’t theirs, but more importantly it means they get to father their own sooner. Nursing females are unavailable for mating, so infanticide forces a lioness into oestrus much faster than waiting for her cubs to wean. Given that a lioness will only give birth once every two years and the average pride tenure for males is also two years, the selective pressure for this brutal behaviour is intense. More like this Females have evolved several cunning counterstrategies, however. By breeding in groups, nursing mothers seek safety in numbers and will either flee or aggressively fight off alien males. When fertile, their main weapon is sex. Mating with multiple males, inside and outside the pride, confuses paternity and deters any incoming males from infanticidal behaviour. Advertisement This means the lioness I seduced by accident was compelled to have sex with me, not because she fancied the sound of my tinny roar but so I didn’t wind up murdering her babies. Life is not always easy for the King. When a lion receives his mating call to duty, he is required to muster up all the stamina he has to satisfy his lioness. Given a lion pride may have several females, his work is cut out for him. When a lioness is in heat and looking to mate, she calls all the shots. Much as it is with other big cats, she decides when, where and how often mating will take place. His job is to…well, get the job done. Lion MatingFemale lions will start mating at about 4 years of age, while males begin closer to 5. Breeding is not seasonal with lions but the females in a pride will often be synchronized in estrus. Much like her feline cousins, a lioness coming into heat will advertise her readiness with sent marking, calling, rubbing on objects and rolling around on the ground. She will engage in a lot of display and she will also be defensive and scrappy.
The Big FinishMale courtship behaviour usually entails lots of head rubbing with the female, urine spraying, licking his genitals and patiently following her. When the lioness is ready and presents, the male will try to grip her neck before mounting. Once he mounts, copulation is generally completed with a few thrusts. “Immediately afterward, the female screams, or snarls, and often twists and hists out at the male, who jumps back growling.” Within a few minutes courtship is resumed.” The Behaviour Guide to African Mammals, Richard Estes Gestation is 14–15 weeks and the typical litter is between 1–4 cubs. She will find a well-hidden, bushy area to have her cubs and will keep them sequestered from the pride for over a month, moving them often to keep them safe. When she eventually rejoins the pride, she will share the mothering duties, nursing her own cubs and those from other lionesses in her pride. How many female lions do male lions mate with?A typical pride of lions consists of about six related females, their dependent offspring, and a “coalition” of 2–3 resident males that joined the pride from elsewhere. The pride is a “fission-fusion” society and pridemates are seldom found together, except for mothers that have pooled their offspring into a “crèche.”
Do male lions mate with only one female?Both sexes are polygamous and breed throughout the year, but females are usually restricted to the one or two adult males of their pride. In captivity lions often breed every year, but in the wild they usually breed no more than once in two years.
Do male lions mate with the whole pride?Prides often consist of between one and three dominant males and several females. Females of one pride typically do not co-mingle with members of other prides. This fact means that typically in a pride, the dominant males do all the mating and father all of the cubs born into their pride.
Why do male lions mate with each other?Ian Michler, maker of a documentary film called “Blood Lions,” said lions “have been known to 'mate' as a way of showing dominance of other males” in a group, particularly a new one.
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Do male lions mate with all the females
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