This link has been bookmarked by 15 people . It was first bookmarked on 10 Nov 2007, by adkittur.
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26 Jun 12
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29 Apr 08
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Lions can seem quite inept at hunting, because they have no way to communicate complicated information. The Discovery Channel case happens when one lion flushes prey in past another for a perfect catch. More often, what happens is than one lion blows it and scares the game too early, or flushes it in the opposite direction. After watching hunt after hunt fail, you soon decide that Iions are not very coordinated. Indeed their only saving grace is that the buffalo can't communicate very well either.
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I was describing this to a friend over lunch in Palo Alto. As I was describing this the waiter came up behind me to take our order. I was in the middle of saying "it's very hard to enter the rectum, but once you do things move much faster", only to hear the waiter gasp. Whoops. I tried to explain saying "well, this is about" but with a horrified look he said "I do NOT want to know what this is about! Some people are just not interested in natural history, I guess.
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The naturalist George Shaller figured this out in the late 1960s with the first quantitative field study. He found that a single lion has a success rate of 15% on a given hunt—or about one successful hunt for every seven. Two lions have a success of 29%, which is 3% LESS successful than if the two lions with 15% individual success hunted by themselves (32.2%). Three lions get 27%, or 2% less than two lions. Four, five and six lions get 32% - meaning that they are (finally) as successful as sending two lions out by themselves. There is clearly no statistical value to hunting in groups
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Watching lions hunt, the trends are quite obvious. The primary reason that groups of lions are no more effective than two by themselves is that typically only two lions do the actual hunting. They all make a show of hunting, but in the cases I watched, in several different prides, there were always a couple females that were the most aggressive and took the lead. The others hang back for the hard part then rush up at the end after the worst danger is over. Their primary goal is to be at the kill early so they can eat, not to actually help. Field studies have confirmed that lions do not seem to keep track of this and punish slackers.
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After watching hunt after hunt fail, you soon decide that Iions are not very coordinated. Indeed their only saving grace is that the buffalo can't communicate very well either.
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Of course if the buffalo herd surrounded the lions when they were sleeping and just methodically trampled them to death, their whole problem would be over, but there is no buffalo general to lead them in such an endeavor.
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27 Sep 07
Spencer CrossThese photos are reminder that lions are violent, bloodthirsty predators and not cuddly stuffed animals. Makes me proud to be a Leo.
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30 Aug 07
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27 Aug 07
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Chris Kingvery intersting to read and see such powerful images of these predators. use this.
lions photos nature photography lion africa CAIS Delicious-12-16-10
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