- The scientific name for lion is Panthera leo. The other species in their genus are Tigers, jaguars, leopards and snow leopards.
- A male lion weighs about 500 pounds and grows to eight feet in length. This makes lions the second largest big cat after the tiger. A lion's claw is as long as a human finger, about three inches, and they have big mouths. They can open their jaws by up to a foot. They also have the loudest roar of any big cat, which can be heard up to 5 miles or 8km away.
- Lions are the only species of big cat in which the male looks different to the female. Males are not only bigger, but have those magnificent manes. The mane starts to grow at the age of about 18 months and will continue to grow until a lion is 5 years old. After that, the mane gets darker in colour, so the darker a lion's mane, the older he is. Female lions prefer to mate with males which have thicker, darker manes. Lions are also the only members of the cat family to have tasselled tails.
- Talking of mating, lions can be randy beasts. A male lion can mate up to 100 times a day although each encounter will only last about 10 seconds. Male lions have backward facing spikes on their penises (as do all cats) which may stimulate ovulation in the female. It's not unknown for both male and female lions to simulate sex with lions of the same gender. Neither is it unknown for a female to sneak off and mate with a male which isn't a member of their pride. This invariably ends in a fight between the established males and the unfamiliar one. Female lions can actually delay conception of cubs until the fighting is over. Cubs, by the way, can also be referred to as whelps or lionets. Lionet is an old middle French word for a small lion, while whelp is a word for the young of any carnivorous species.
- Lions are sometimes randy enough to breed with other types of big cat, especially in captivity. If a lioness breeds with a male leopard, their offspring is called a leopon. A lioness and male jaguar hybrid is called a jaglion. If a lioness breeds with a male tiger, the result is a tigon. Male lions have been known to breed with female tigers, and in that case, the offspring is called a liger.
- The song which goes "In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight" is actually completely wrong. Although lions are often called the kings of the jungle, they don't live in jungles at all, but on plains and grasslands. Also, they are more likely to be hunting than sleeping at night.
- Talking of hunting, the females do most of that, while the males are left to guard the territory. However, the females hand over their kills to the males so they can eat first. A female lion needs 5kg of meat a day; a male 7kg or more. They are well-adapted for hunting, of course. The skin of their bellies is loose so that they can survive being kicked by the hoofed animals they prey on. Their tongues are so rough that they can use them to peel the skin off their prey. If you let a lion lick your hand it could easily take your skin off. Lions have about a 50% success rate in their hunting. They also scavenge - more than half their food is scavenged rather than hunted. Although a lion can run at 50 mph (81kmph), they can only do it in a straight line and only for a few seconds at a time - so they have to get as close as possible to their prey before starting the chase. A lioness may bring back a small animal alive so her cubs can practice their hunting skills.
- Lions are more sociable than most cats. They live in prides which typically have about 15 members. Female lions usually stay with the same pride for life, and their female offspring will stay with them. Males, however, get thrown out of the pride at the age of two and have to fend for themselves. Hence only about one in eight survive. Their best hope is to take over another pride, kill the resident male and all their cubs. Sometimes they will team up with other lone males to achieve this.
- Lions have a Black spot at the base of each of their whiskers. These spots form a pattern which is as unique to each lion as our fingerprints are to us. They also have a White patch of fur under their eyes, which, along with a reflective coating on the back of their eyes to capture moonlight, helps them see in the dark six times better than we do. They have large pupils, too, three times as big as ours, but they can't move their eyes from side to side so well, and have to turn their entire heads to look in a different direction.
- Lions are seen as noble, powerful and brave, and are often adopted as national symbols, even by countries in which lions are only found in the zoo, like Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, England, Ethiopia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Humans have been fascinated by them for over 32,000 years, as evidenced by the earliest recorded images of them, in cave paintings of that age in the Chauvet Cave in southern France. Greek mythology had the Nemean lion, which was killed by Heracles. It is that lion which is represented by the constellation of Leo and the zodiac sign. Lions also gave their name to the Bulgarian currency, the Leva, which is Old Belgian for Lion. The Turkish word for lion is Aslan, which CS Lewis used as the name for the lion in his Narnia stories, while the Swahili word is Simba, the name of a character in The Lion King. The lion is also used as a symbol for the Gryffindor house in the Harry Potter series. The lion used in the MGM logo has opened every one of its movies since 1929. He has a name - “Leo the Lion”. Then there is the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz and Elsa the lioness in Born Free.
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