Archive for the 'Lion' category

Even better than going to Africa, you can have your own lion pet, cute lion cub at home.

Furry and reacting to its environment, this is really a cool robot toy.

http://www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/ToysGames/RadioControl/WowweeAliveLion.htm

£49.95 (about $100 USD or 75€) in pre-order.

A few top-quality images taken by James Pan. Felines, lovely big cats and other animals shot in perfect portraits.

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Feline teeth are their most prominent exterior feature. Since the prehistoric Smilodon (the smiling feline) and its gigantic canines, big cats use their impressive dental characteristics to hunt.

On the Laelaps web site, you will find a detaileld article on feline teeth, from yesterday to nowadays: What big teeth you have. Please, also notice the hunting videos (lions hunting elephant, lions hunting a giraffe).

Yesterday, we were speaking here about prehistoric big cats in places where they disappeared (e.g. Europe). Today, I want to point at a surprising proposal made by Josh Donlan.

Recognizing that many big cats were roaming in North America tens of thousands of years ago, he want to re-introduce lions, cheetahs, elephants and other large animals in North America. He admits that this could be a bit difficult and that there is no way to rebuild the original population. But he offers ideas about how to bring camels and lions (from the closest relatives species) to a country were they were last seen hundreds of centuries ago.

Of course, it sounds a lot like Jurassic Park for real. Are you ready to find in the United States cheetahs hunting pronghorn bucks in the Wild West (wild again) or in Montana?

Found on Tretrapod Zoology, a series of articles about prehistoric felines among which one can find big cats like lions, pumas, jaguars, cougars, cheetahs or leopards on continents where they totally disappeared later.

• Europe, where the sabre-tooths, lions and leopards are
• Pumas of South Africa, cheetahs of France, jaguars of England

Source: http://www.coreybehnke.com/.

These images come from the classic works of the German veterinary anatomists, Wilhelm Ellenberger and Hermann Baum, and medical illustrator, Hermann Dittrich. The texts, from which these illustrations were derived, are works published in 1898 and 1911 through 1925, all entitled ‘Handbuch der Anatomie der Tiere für Künstler‘ which can be translated as “Handbook (or Atlas) of Animal Anatomy for Artists” and are online at the University of Wisconsin - Madison Botany Department Teaching Collection. There are about eighty images in total relating to the lion, goat, horse, deer, dog and cow.

Source: BiblioOdyssey.

Sure they are! But Kevin Richardson, animal behaviourist, has learned how to go freely with them.

He found that behaving submissively could ensure that the lions would accept him in their group.

Source: DailyMail.

If you want to survive, live long and have siblings, you need to eat. This is not going to happen if your food is stolen:

To be clear, I did not see that when in South Africa two months ago, but I would have loved to be there shooting images… And I can tell from the sound (or lack of camera shutter noise) that there was no photographer in the car this day.

Neatorama had a mad streak of posting with all these images and videos about big felines in weird contexts. It’s no longer wildlife, but it’s zazzy enough to show.

In this order, you will find below:

• The leopard in the bed
• The cheetah in the car (video)
• The lion in the tub
• The tigers and the chicklets

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Amongst the big five (the prefered game of safari hunters in the 19th and 20th centuries), there is -of course- the mighty lion. I did not kill any, but I shot several images:

Lion cub


Lionness
(Click on the thumbnails to see the larger image)