When watching the animal world, many people will see that when a lion is mating, the male lion will bite the female’s neck until the mating is completed. So why does the lion do this?
The mating of lions
In nature, many animals have estrus season, but the lion is an exception. If there are no cubs under 6 months in the lion group, the lioness will collectively estrus. Scientists do not yet know why the lioness has evolved such a mechanism. It is speculated that it may be because the collective estrus of the lioness helps to maintain the age of the offspring, so that one lioness can take care of the offspring, and the other lions can go out for hunting. food.
is also precisely because of this mechanism, so when other male lions successfully challenge the lion king, not only will the original lion king be driven away, but also the population within 6 months The cub was killed and forced the lioness to estrus.
Under normal circumstances, lionesses only come into heat once every 2 years, but if there are no cubs within 6 months of the population, lionesses will also come into heat collectively. The estrus period of a lioness is only about 1 month. At this time, the male lion will receive the lioness's estrus signal, accompany the lioness inseparably, and mate with the lioness many times within a day, sometimes even as many as 100 repeatedly.
Unlike many creatures, keratin grows on the reproductive organs of male lions. These keratins form barbs like barbs, which strongly stimulate the lioness’s body during mating. , Causing the lioness to feel abnormal pain.
Some studies believe that a lioness must feel pain to ovulate, and it takes multiple pain stimulations to make it easier to ovulate. Other studies believe that the barbs of the male lion's keratin can not only stimulate the lioness to ovulate, but also scrape the germ cells left by the predecessor to ensure that the offspring are their own.
So mating is not pleasant for a lioness, but painful. When the lioness feels pain, it will fight back against the male lion. In order to calm the lioness, the male lion will bite the other's neck to prevent being hurt by the lioness.
This is also the case with other cats in the cat family, such as domestic cats. When domestic cats are breeding offspring, male cats will also bite the female cat’s neck. However, after mating is over, male cats should quickly avoid Otherwise, you will suffer the mother cat's merciless serial legs.
Lion King’s victory
For polygamous creatures, most males can have the opportunity to mate, but the lion’s world is king takes all. We know that lions have estrus periods, and during estrus, male lions can easily identify which female lion is in heat through external characteristics, and then follow it inseparably, and mate with it, even if the lioness is hunting. Lions will also interfere with them, thinking about mating. Because of this, most of the offspring of a lioness are the offspring of the lion king, and a small part are the offspring of other male lions in the population.
Many people think that a lion group has only one lion king, but this is not the case. Some lion groups are composed of 2-3 male lions. These male lions are related by blood, but only the lion king Only when there is absolute right to mate, other male lions can only miss out, and the chance of leaving offspring is relatively small.
This is different for domestic cats. Most domestic cats live alone, so they are more inclined to polygamy during mating. It has been observed that among the offspring of the same female cat, There are 4 different breeds, which means that these cats have at least 4 different fathers. The advantage of doing this is to ensure the genetic diversity of the offspring and increase the survival rate of the offspring.
Although the lion king is larger and stronger, the lion king does not participate in hunting. Even after the lioness has worked hard to snatch the prey, they will give priority to the prey. Therefore, hunting and raising offspring are all undertaken by lionesses.
The mortality of cubs
Because of the unique estrus mechanism of lioness, plus lion is a top predator, it is more sensitive to environmental changes, once the local energy Reduced, cubThe mortality rate will rise significantly.
Lion cubs are weaned at about 6-7 months, and the spots on their bodies will gradually disappear. Female lions mature sexually around 2 years old, and generally they stay in the same population forever. The male lion has to grow up to 5-6 years old to be sexually mature, but around the age of 2-3, the male lion has to leave his original tribe and join other lion groups through battle.
The advantage of this is that inbreeding can be avoided, but because the male lion is immature when leaving home and cannot prey on enough prey, the death rate of male lions is very high, even reaching 90 %.
If the surviving lions are strong enough, they will challenge the position of the lion king. Of course, sometimes they will team up with their other brothers to challenge the position of the lion king. Once successful, they will repeat the story of the new lion king killing the cub within 6 months after taking office.
