Human beings have a high IQ and have plenty of time to observe and think about the world, and it can be said that our curiosity can never be satisfied. Therefore, the first object of human observation is the various animals around them, and how they survive and reproduce is a problem we have been studying for a long time. Animals are different from humans, they do not have a clear mind, especially in the face of mating, often animalistic hair, six relatives do not recognize.
The wandering male lion still knows his mother
Recent news of abducted children being found by their biological parents and returning to their families has attracted a lot of attention. It turns out that the love of parents for their children can really be so deep, through years of persistent searching and never giving up, and finally the family can be reunited, which shows that the blood connection is real. In fact, family affection is not unique to humans, it also exists in the animal kingdom, so even if the male lion who has been wandering outside for many years can still recognize his mother if he is lucky enough to return to his homeland.
However, the chances of a male lion returning to their original lion group are very small. After all, if its father, the Old Lion King, existed, it would not be allowed to come back, and even if it appeared in the surrounding area, it would be expelled. Surely some people will wonder, why is this? Wouldn't the "parents" of a lion cub miss it?
It's not surprising that most people first learned about lions through the cartoon "The Lion King," and the licking of Simba's father in the film is impressive. But in nature, it is not as warm as the film plays, and once they reach the right age, the male lions will be expelled from the lion group and go to the grassland to "fight alone".
The fate of the expelled male lion has several endings, the first is to become the lion king of the new lion group. Second, two or three groups of other expelled male lions wandered in groups. Third, they died of hunting or were starved to death because they did not catch their prey. But either way, from the time it was driven out of the lion group, its fate had nothing to do with the lion group and its "parents".
Several male lions that make up a wandering alliance tend to hunt cooperatively, and as their abilities are more and more strengthened, they will go to the nearby lion herd to provoke and provoke. When the time is ripe, he will fight with the lion king of that lion group, and if he succeeds, he will become the new leader of the lion group and take over all the female lions in that lion group.
If, by chance, the wandering male lion returned to the lion group that raised him and became the new leader, could it be discovered? The answer is certain, because male lions have the responsibility of reproduction and must mate with female lions in the lion group. Although time has passed, it is no longer a "youthful appearance", and the mother who raised it should also gradually change, but they will recognize each other when they are close, not by appearance, but by smell.
Therefore, the "six relatives do not recognize" during mating is only the appearance that humans see, and animals can actually rely on smell or sound to distinguish their relatives. Of course, the above kind of wandering male lions returning to the lion group to become the leader of the lion group will basically not happen in reality. Because the male lions are driven out of the wide range of activities, they basically only stay away from the original lion group.
This behavior actually stems from the "inbreeding avoidance mechanism" in lions, and only by driving male cubs farther away can they prevent mating with their sisters or mothers in the lion group.
Why do you say sisters? This brings us to the "differential treatment" of lions, yes, the lions are "female over male", and at the appropriate age, only male lions will be expelled, and female lions can continue to live. If the lion herd is dominated by their father, the female lions of the right age will also show some magical changes.
Studies have shown that if the male lion is the biological father of the young lioness, then the sexual maturity of these lionesses will be significantly delayed; if the male lion's throne is replaced by another male lion, then the sexual maturity of the growing lioness will be greatly advanced.
Lion Alliance with Lion Female Group
In related documentaries, there will always be deliberately filming a male lion around several female lions and cubs, so that many people subconsciously think that there is only one male lion in the lion group, which is not right. There are generally more than a dozen lions in the lion group, and the male lion basically does not participate in the hunting, and its responsibility is to guard the territory of the lion group and expel the wandering male lions in case they come here to compete for resources.
As we mentioned earlier, wandering male lions form a "wandering alliance", which often has 3 or 4 male lions. Even if the lion king of the lion group is strong, it is difficult to fight one against three, so they need helpers, and these helpers are usually "brothers" who grew up in the same lion group as themselves, and it is this character who murdered Simba's father in "The Lion King".
Therefore, the number of male lions in the lion group is 2 to 4, and there are very few more than 4. The mating rights are distributed according to the "first come, first served" rule, first found that a female lion in estrus will guard the female lion, in the subsequent estrus period to prevent other male lions from taking advantage of the void.
Zoologist Gretel Parker has studied lions for 30 years, taking hundreds of blood samples from lions for DNA analysis, and the results show that the fathers of a litter of lion cubs are all the same male lions, and that reproductive opportunities are only equally shared if there are only two male lions in a lion group.
Male lions rarely show care for their cubs, but will dutifully patrol the territory to ensure the safety of the young lions in the territory, somewhat like "fathers who are not good at words". It is worth mentioning that once the lion king is defeated by other male lions, it means that the lion group is taken over, and the young male lions in the lion group will be killed by the new leader. This act of cutting grass and removing roots makes people sigh, but it is caused by reality.
Because it is difficult for a female lion who is still breastfeeding to be in heat, the successor will kill the female lion's children in order to quickly reproduce her offspring, so that they will be in heat again in a short period of time. Some female lionesses will lead the lion cubs to escape, but orphans and widows who are sheltered by lions will have a hard time surviving.
The lioness group refers to the "child-rearing group" of all female lions in the lion group, and these female lions will take extra care of the young lions, such as helping them lick their hair and accompany them to play, although these young lions are not their own children. Single female lions who have not yet been in heat will also consciously help take care of the cubs when the biological mother of the cub goes out hunting, so the cubs can often suck milk from multiple females in the lion group.
Animals consciously avoid inbreeding
As we all know, inbreeding is very detrimental to organisms. Taking humans as an example, large-scale inbreeding has occurred in both Chinese and European history, and in order to ensure the "purity of blood" of their descendants, members of the royal family have made an absurd "incest" drama last for many years.
For example, the marriage between a cousin and a cousin, or the marriage between an uncle and a niece, in short, is very complicated. But the result of such continuous inbreeding is that the royal bloodline is almost cut down and rooted, because the offspring born of inbreeding are born with many defects, and they often die early before they are 10 years old.
Animals have multiplied in nature for so many generations that they have discovered this long ago, so they will deliberately avoid "inbreeding" to avoid genetic deterioration under such inheritance. The expulsion of male lions we described earlier is based on this, and the "prohibition of backcropping" is a recognition engraved in the genes of many animals, so even if the wandering male lion reunites with his mother, he will avoid mating with his mother.
Experts have found through experiments that even if mice separate their siblings immediately after birth and put them together until they are sexually mature, they will avoid their compatriots without incest.
Darwin made it clear in 1876 that inbreeding was not good for offspring. He called this concept "inbreeding fading," noting that inbreeding reduces an individual's ability to reproduce as an adult. Later, some scholars studied the inbreeding coefficient to determine the proportion of offspring genes.
The inbreeding avoidance mechanism of the animal kingdom is mainly carried out in the following four ways. First, kinship recognition, which is what we mentioned above to identify mothers by smell, except for lions, most animals in nature can rely on special means to distinguish each other's relationship with themselves.
The second is the spread of individuals, especially like lions, the distribution of species is relatively concentrated, in order to avoid inbreeding, males will go to live elsewhere, which is also called "male dispersal mechanism". The third is delayed sexual maturity, most newborn animals will have a delay in the period of sexual maturity if they live with their biological parents for a long time.
Finally, the outer population mates mate, and the female individuals will mate with males outside the habitat to improve genes. This feature is found in populations like bees, and exotic males are often very popular with bee colonies.
Lions suffering from AIDS
Among the lions, the more famous is the African lion, and their corrective posture of running on the African savannah makes many animal lovers "crazy for it". As a large carnivore, the lion is at the forefront of the food chain and has fewer natural enemies. But african lions have been endangered several times over the years, and the culprit is not the hunting or starvation of natural enemies, but AIDS.
Biologists say that lions develop AIDS that behave like humans, which destroys their immune systems and causes them to become weak. Sharing food and attacking each other can make AIDS more widespread, ultimately endangering entire populations.
However, experts believe that AIDS is self-contained in lions, and the presence of HIV was found in felines more than a decade ago. The current scope and scale of the disease is very wide, probably because it is contagious, but the infected group is limited to lions and will not be transmitted to humans.
The clash between lions and humans
It is worth mentioning that with the continuous expansion of human territory, the last bit of distance between us and the lion has disappeared. As a carnivorous lion, it is still easy to attack humans. Previously, there were news reports that a village in the border area between Kenya and Somalia was attacked by 15 African lions in the middle of the night, which eventually led to the death of many people.
Local police said lion attacks on human villages were frequent and may have been linked to poachers. Many poachers shoot lionesses and then take advantage of the opportunity to snatch the cubs. And the lionesses who love their sons will make a terrible cry on the grassland and embark on a journey to find their children.
So, they may have attacked the villagers as if they were the ones who snatched the young lions, and the innocent villagers and lions were victims. It is the thief who has made the originally peaceful and peaceful land stained with blood.