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Who’s the Daddy? For Lion Cubs, It’s Safer Not to Know

Promiscuous lionesses keep cubs safe from infanticide by confusing paternity.

Posted Apr 29, 2019

Stotra Chakrabarti, Asiatic Lion Project of the Wildlife Institute of India.

Courting Asiatic lions in Gir.

Source: Stotra Chakrabarti, Asiatic Lion Project of the Wildlife Institute of India.

African lions seem to exemplify the conflict between genders. A coalition of males will defend their right to exclusively breed with a group of females against intruding males, who won’t think twice about killing all the cubs in order to hasten the siring of their own with the females.

But in a subspecies of lion, infanticide and sexual coercion are much rarer – and much of it appears to be due to the savvy mating strategy of the females.

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The Mane Event

Asiatic lions are now found as a single population in the Gir forests of Gujarat, western India. Their social organization differs from that of African lions: adults live in same-sex groups that interact primarily for mating. Unlike in African lions, adult male Asiatic lions are not an integral part of any particular pride and live their lives alone or in coalitions on the edges of the territories of multiple female groups.

The Asiatic lion project of the Wildlife Institute of India, led by Yadvendradev Jhala, is one of the longest ongoing carnivore research projects in India. Since the mid-1990s, Jhala and his colleagues have been amassing individual-level information on lions through careful observations and radio-telemetry tracking of cats. As a result, researchers have come to know the life histories of many of these lions since their births.

Stotra Chakrabarti, who joined the Asiatic lion project for his graduate work, says that following lions up-close and personal is an adventure. Although much of the work involved long hours watching lions catnap, he also had to learn what to do when charged by a mating pair or a lioness with small cubs (the answer is to never show your back; instead, stand your ground, thrash a stick about, and shout).

“Our long acclimatization processes with our study individuals made us gain the lions’ confidence, allowing us to observe them from close quarters,” says Chakrabarti. “They accepted us – maybe like a persistent fly that meant no harm to them!”

Stotra Chakrabarti, Asiatic Lion Project of the Wildlife Institute of India.

An Asiatic lioness solicits mating.

Source: Stotra Chakrabarti, Asiatic Lion Project of the Wildlife Institute of India.

Battle of the Sexes

In a new study, Jhala and Chakrabarti detail the social structure and mating behavior of Asiatic lions. Over several years, they observed 70 individual lions belonging to 11 male coalitions (ranging in size from one to four males) and nine female prides (ranging from three to eight adult females and their cubs).

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They discovered that each female pride was encompassed by the ranges of two to four male coalitions, whose ranges overlapped with one another. Lionesses mated with multiple males belonging to rival coalitions before conceiving, contrary to the African lion system of a single male coalition monopolizing mating opportunities.

“In this system, where females inevitably encounter many males, promiscuity helps the lionesses familiarize (through mating) with many such rival coalitions and confuse paternity amongst them,” says Chakrabarti. “Males from several coalitions get convinced that the Cubs have been sired by them and thus, do not kill them.

“Female promiscuity helps lionesses safeguard their cubs against infanticide, deter sexual harassments from males, and possibly enhance genetic variability in their progeny.”

Adjacent established male coalitions exhibited low to medium levels of aggression toward each other but were tolerant toward the same litters, suggestive of confused paternity. The researchers only observed infanticide when totally new males invaded a female group’s territory.

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Big Cat Habits

Jhala and Chakrabarti believe the differences in mating strategies and the social structure of lions in Gir and Africa come down to differences in resources. The prey of Asiatic lions tends to be smaller, non-migratory and found in higher densities than that of African lions. The result is smaller group sizes and more seasonally uniform territories in Asiatic lions.

Stotra Chakrabarti, Asiatic Lion Project of the Wildlife Institute of India.

Asiatic lion cubs and mother.

Source: Stotra Chakrabarti, Asiatic Lion Project of the Wildlife Institute of India.

Another factor is that males may not be able to contain and control lionesses in the dense forest habitat of Gir, which provides more cover for females than open African savannahs. Plus, maintaining a monopoly over a female pride could require males to fight with adjacent coalitions, leading to injuries and fatalities.

Finally, Jhala and Chakrabarti have documented pronounced hierarchies within male Asiatic lion coalitions (unlike groups of male African lions, which are more egalitarian). Asiatic lion coalitions have a dominant male who does most of the mating and gets the “lion’s share” of food from kills. The optimal size of a coalition is two males, and this might render them inefficient at maintaining exclusivity over a large area with several female prides.

Whatever the reasons, Jhala and Chakrabarti’s research shows that species have extraordinary potentials to adapt to their surroundings. Even large, charismatic species that we think we know, like lions, can change their strategies when faced with different environmental conditions.