The Lions.....1.) Lions are the only truly social cat species, and usually every female in a pride of 5-37 individuals is closely related.
2.) An adult lion's roar can be heard up to five miles away and warns off intruders or reunites scattered pride members.
3.) Although only one out of four hunting events is successful, dominant males always eat first, lionesses next, and cubs scramble for scraps and leftovers.
4.) Most lions drink water daily if available, but can go four or five days without it. Lions in arid areas seem to obtain needed moisture from the stomach contents of their prey.
5.) When males take over a pride, they usually kill the cubs. The females come into estrus and the new males sire other cubs.
6.) Tigers are lions' closest relatives. Without their coats, lion and tiger bodies are so similar that only experts can tell them apart.
7.) A male coalition rarely holds onto a pride longer than two to three years before being run off by fierce challengers.
8.) For short distances lions can reach speeds of 50 miles per hour.
9.) Longest Leap for a lion is 36 feet.
10.) Lions once ranged over vast areas on many continents. Fossil evidence shows that until about 10,000 years ago, lions lived throughout Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and into Asia as far as southern India and the island of Sri Lanka. They also lived in North America and northern South America. Since then, however, the lion's range has been shrinking steadily.
The Kangaroos......
1.) A male kangaroo is called a buck. It is also commonly called a "boomer" or an "old man". A female kangaroo is called a doe, or a flyer. A baby kangaroo is called a joey.
2.) All kangaroos have a chambered stomach similar to cattle and sheep. They regurgitate the vegetation they have eaten, chew it as cud, and then swallow it again for final digestion.
3.) They cannot move backwards.
4.) Odd kangaroo fact: on land kangaroos can't move their hind legs independently, only together. But when they are swimming (they are good swimmers) they kick each leg independently.
5.) When kangaroos (after a joey has left the pouch) give birth again, one of their teats will continue to produce a high carbohydrate milk for the older joey. The new baby will attach itself to another teat that produces a different kind of milk with a higher fat content.
6.) It's an urban myth that the name kangaroo is the result of a misunderstanding, and developed from an Aboriginal word meaning "I don't know", or "I don't understand".
7.) There are more kangaroos in Australia than humans. This is mostly due to the clearing of bushlands for pasture and increased availability of surface water since European settlement.
8.) There are 47 varieties of kangaroo, ranging in size from the two-pound rock wallaby to the 6-foot, 300-pound red kangaroo.
9.) Kangaroos can go months without drinking, and when they do need water, will dig their own water wells to find it .
10.) There are more than 50 different kinds of kangaroos.
Ok that is it for this week. Make sure to check in next week for Llamas and Rabbits. (Dh's choice)
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