Did you know that Aslan is the Turkish and Mongolian word for “lion?” It is also the name of the lion in C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia.
Lions are the second largest of the big cats, after tigers.
Unlike most other cats, lions are great swimmers, but did you also know that they can leap over 36 feet?
Lions eat about 18 pounds of meat per day. That would be like a human eating more than 70 hamburgers.
Although the lion is known as “the king of the jungle,” lions do not live in jungles. They live only in grasslands and plains.
The two majestic stone lions that stand guard outside the New York Public library are named Patience and Fortitude. They were named in the 1930s to reflect the qualities New Yorkers exhibited during the Great Depression.
A lion’s roar is the loudest of any big cat and can be heard up to 5 miles (8 km) away. A tiger’s roar can be heard for roughly 2 miles. And of the big cats, only the tiger, lion, leopard, and jaguar can roar.
Lions can see six times better in the dark than a human. At night, a reflective coating on the back of their eyes helps capture moonlight. Additionally, they have a white patch of fur underneath their eyes that helps to reflect even more light.
A lion’s bite is 30 times stronger than the bite of a housecat. But they actually have the weakest bite of all the big cats, at 600 psi. The jaguar has the strongest bite force of any big cat at 2000 psi. The animal with the strongest bite of all is the Nile crocodile at 5000 psi.
The lion is the most social of all big cats. Lions live in prides of 2 to 40 members, with the average pride consisting of 13 animals.
A dominant male in a pride has two jobs. First, he must mate with all the females in the pride and, second, he must defend the pride from other males who want to take over. Male lions usually can keep control over a pride for 4 years.
Among all the big cats, lions nap the most, sleeping up to 22 hours a day. Additionally, male lions not only let the lioness do about 90% of the pride’s hunting, they also have first dibs on eating the caught prey.
A lion pride’s territory can stretch up to 100 square miles and can cover grasslands, open woodland, and scrubs.
Lions do not purr. The only member of the big cat family that does is the leopard.
At the base of each lion’s whisker is a black spot. The patterns these spots make are unique to each lion, similar to a human’s fingerprint. Scientists are able to tell lions apart by looking at these patterns.
The earliest recorded images of lions are found in the Chauvet Cave in southern France dating back 32,000 years.
Since the origin of civilization, images of lions have been used to represent majesty, awe, and leadership. Their depictions can be found in most civilizations including Paleolithic cultures, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, Middle Eastern, Persian, Jewish, Christian, many gnostic traditions, Arthurian legends, Islamic traditions, Hindu-Buddhist traditions, and Chinese and Eastern Asian traditions.
References provided at this website: https://www.factretriever.com/lions
