Readers’ wildlife photos

We have a new submission, so I have at least two more days of reserve photos. Today’s photos are of LIONS and are from Phil Frymire, whose leopard photos were posted a week ago. As I said, I met him in Newark in line for the plane to Johannesburg; we were headed for separate safari trips and he recognized me. Phil’s captions are indented, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Continuing with the big cats, here are some lion (Panthera leo) photos. We saw lions at both Timbavati and Mala Mala. One pride at Mala Mala had twenty members: two adult males and eighteen females, juveniles and cubs.

We begin with some nature red in tooth and claw. This is a Mala Mala pride feeding on a buffalo carcass.

We visited this kill site in Timbavati several times. A pride had taken down a pregnant giraffe and fed on it for several days. On the last day we visited, there was very little left. This female was gnawing on the scraps. You can see the giraffe’s hide in the foreground and its defleshed skull to the left.

Here she is biting with the side of her jaw, using the carnassial teeth to shear some meat off the bone.

Nursing cubs jockeying for position:

Mala Mala cubs with a bad case of mange which they are apparently transmitting to their mother:

Two juveniles:

Relaxing on the sand near the river at Mala Mala:

Profile of a Mala Mala male:

The same male showing the flehmen response, which moves scent molecules into the vomeronasal organ for analysis. He was part of a “lion wedding party”, as Jerry’s guide put it. I think our guide called it a “honeymoon”. [JAC: Actiually, DAN called it a “lion wedding party”.]

Another shot of the flehmen grimace. He was relentlessly following the female and sampling her rear end: