Lion Lions Animals Hunt Prey

Lions tend to hunt mostly by night or in the early mornings. They are least active between 11a.m and 5 p.m, but being opportunists they'll hunt whenever the opportunity arises and that could be the middle of the hottest day.

One of the most significant facts about lions and the way they hunt is that they are not very fast animals. Of course compared to us they are, but then we're supposed to have large enough brains to ensure we don't end up trying to out-run one (those humans that did found themselves neatly pruned from the evolutionary tree a while back.)

The animals which lion hunt, are, by contrast some of the fastest animals on the planet - a wildebeest can achieve a top speed of somewhere around 80 kph and maintain it. Even a wart hog can manage almost 50 kph. All of them are capable of motorcycle style acceleration. Such is the disparity between predator and prey that many of the faster species don't even bother to run away at full speed.

As a result lions have developed two main hunting methods; the first is a version of grandmother's footsteps, in which the lion stalks from cover to cover with a final burst of speed at the end. The second is to find a bush close to something your prey needs - usually water - climb in and wait. The latter has the great advantage that you can sleep whilst you are technically "out hunting".

There are two things that help the lion considerably. First they are incredibly good at hiding. I've frequently stopped close to a bush concealing a number of lions and not seen them until one decides to get up and leave (possibly suggesting that I too am right for pruning). Secondly, the antelopes spent so much time on speed research and development that brain development - particularly the part which relates to "learning from our mistakes" - was left to gather dust on a shelf.

George Schaller, the lion researcher of the Serengeti National Park, recounts watching a group of Thomson's gazelles crossing a patch of thick bush in order to drink. Lo and behold when they entered the thick bush, it was positively bursting at the seams with lions who instantly grabbed and ate one of the gazelles. Over the next two hours the same group of gazelles, suffering from appalling short term memory loss tried not once but twice more to get to the water. And on both occasions, to their apparent astonishment, they were chased by enraged mega-carnivores. How could a thing like that slip your mind?

The interesting thing that stems from all of this is that prey animals are most afraid of lion when they can't be seen. As a result, when a lion does appear they all stare at it - so long as they can see it and it knows that they can see it, everybody's safe.

So when you're out on a game drive, and looking for lion, or any other predator, what you should be looking for is gazelles, zebra and other prey animals standing with heads up and staring hard in one direction. They will almost certainly be looking at either a predator or a person.

Another interesting thing about the way lion hunt is that they don't seem to take account of wind direction. This is something researchers argue about as it's very difficult to tell why an animal is doing something and very easy to project what you know onto what you are seeing. (If a lion walks towards an animal, is it hunting it, or was it just going that way anyway?). The bottom line is that when someone actually recorded wind direction in 100s of hunts that they observed, the lions hunted upwind (good idea) as often as they hunted down wind (not such a good idea).

This probably has a lot to do with the prey animals. Most antelope have very large bulgy eyes that are positioned on the sides of their heads. This gives them a very wide angle of view and makes them incredibly good at picking up movement. So for a lion, when it comes to being spotted, wind direction may be important, but it's not nearly as important as remaining out of sight.

For how and where to see lions, have a look at Will I see lions on safari? and Tanzania Highlights - Lions

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How Lions Hunt