Photo of the Day # 80: Lion Pair

Lions (Panthera leo) are big cats most famously known for their social structures, a pride consisting of many females (two females from the Philadelphia Zoo picture above) and one male (or a coalition of several males) living together. Unlike other gregarious carnivores like the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta), however, lions lack a well-defined social hierarchy, something that becomes readily apparent when these cats feed. In terms of feeding males are dominant and eat first (and may be entirely selfish if they captured some prey on their own), but beyond this the females do not have any sort of pecking order as to who has access to the food before others. This can make feeding especially chaotic and problematic for younger individuals that may not be able to muscle their way through to getting a good amount of food, but apparently this disorganization is not costly enough as yet to put pressure on populations to develop a more organized social system in terms of access to carcasses.