Caturday felid

by Greg Mayer

These two lions are father and son. The son is 23 months old.

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Adult male lion at Racine Zoo

23 month old male lion at Racine Zoo

23 month old male lion at Racine Zoo

Note that at 23 months, the cub is nearly as big as his father, and has lost most, if not all, of the juvenile spotting earlier noted by Jerry. In the full size photo, there’s the slightest hint of some spotting remaining on his right thigh.

This entry was written by whyevolutionistrue and posted on August 15, 2009 at 12:02 am and filed under Articles with tags , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

3 Comments

  1. SeanK
    Posted August 15, 2009 at 10:59 am | Permalink

    Is the mother at the same zoo?

    • whyevolutionistrue
      Posted August 17, 2009 at 9:00 am | Permalink

      Yes, the mother is at the same zoo. She was inside at the time I took the photos.

      GCM

  2. Heinrich Mallison
    Posted August 16, 2009 at 8:55 am | Permalink

    Nice – a very good example how dominant males can delay the onset of typical characters of sexual maturity in inferior males.


2 Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. By Caturday felid: the Spotted Lion « Why Evolution Is True on January 30, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    […] recall from Jerry’s earlier posting of a video of lion cubs, lions are born with spots, which disappear as they mature. Jerry and I disputed whether such patterns in young animals are atavistic or adaptive, but my […]

  2. By Caturday Felid- spotted lions « Why Evolution Is True on June 5, 2010 at 9:08 am

    […] here at WEIT, are born spotted, and retain some spots for up to two years or so, but eventually lose them as they mature. The controversy about spotted lions is whether adult spotted lions (only a single individual has […]

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