• Question: why to lions have manes

    Asked by cewis to Enda, Jean, Kate, Kev, Tim on 15 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Jean Bourke

      Jean Bourke answered on 15 Nov 2012:

      To look sexy.

      No joke. The bigger, thicker and darker the mane the healthier and more successful the lion. That’s what a lioness likes.

      The mane itself makes the lion look bigger and more intimidating so it is more likely to drive off other lions or enemies. It can indicate what age the lion is (has it reached sexual maturity. Climate can also have an effect hence lions in zoos can look different than they would in the wild. In general lions in Africa have thicker manes than Asian lions.

      Aside from making lions look bigger manes can make them very hot indeed. There’s a theory that what the lion is saying is basically “I’m so tough and healthy that overheating doesn’t bother me, that’s how cool I am.” The idea is that if the lion can disadvantage himself and still do well he must be a really really good mate.

      Of course a lioness doesn’t think all this, she just thinks “wow, look that the mane on him!”

    • Photo: Tim Downing

      Tim Downing answered on 17 Nov 2012:

      Hi Cewis,

      Yeah Jean’s answer is good – and there are some interesting nuances from a study by scientists from 2002 in a journal called Science. They found that lions with bigger manes made other males less likely to fight them, and that females found them more attractive as expected.

      But there was another major factor: lions live in hot countries, and having a big mane is not a good idea! So on the one hand the males want to look sexy for females, but they are also sweltering from the heat as well. So for some lions, if their mane was too long, then they did less well. With global warming, this means lion manes are probably getting shorter because of the heat stress (assuming no weird local climate patterns).

      This example of a dis-advantageous trait is common for sex-related traits, like deer antlers that are really heavy and not useful for anything but fighting for mates!

      Tim

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