Readers’ wildlife photos

Reader Ephaim Heller continues his photo safari to Tanzania with pictures of mammals, including adorable lion cubs. Ephraim’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge his photos by clicking on them.

Brief introduction: Continuing with my virtual safari, these photos were taken in Tanzania in April 2025. Most are from the Serengeti National Park with a few from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. On today’s agenda are servals, caracals, genets, and more lions, including ridiculously cute lion cubs.

Servals (Leptailurus serval) are beautiful cats of which I was only vaguely aware prior to my trip. The species is the sole member of the genus Leptailurus. As a pleasant surprise, servals are plentiful in Tanzania. I spent hours photographing them as they hunted in the flowers, and they didn’t care at all. Servals are so charismatic that humans have begun to breed them with domestic cats, resulting in the popular pet breed Savannah cats (not shown):

Servals are ambush predators that use their large ears to locate prey. They take down prey in half of their attempts, a higher success rate than lions hunting together—making servals likely the most productive hunters among wild cats. A serval can leap over 2 m above the ground to land with its forefeet on its prey on its forefeet, and kills it with a bite on the neck or the head. This photo captures a lower pounce:

In contrast to the servals, it was challenging to find and photograph a caracal (Caracal caracal). Wikipedia claims that “the caracal is highly secretive and difficult to observe,” which sounds right to me. I managed to capture a photo of one individual at dusk. He/she kindly posed amidst the flowers. I am jealous of its ear tufts — I wish my old man ear hair was so elegant:

Common genets (Genetta genetta). Genets are cat-like critters but are only distantly related to the cat family. They are members of the Viverridae family which includes civets, linsangs, oyans, various palm civets, the binturong, and the fosa (I’ve never heard of most of these animals). Here’s a genet fact with which you can impress your friends at cocktail parties: “Viverrids are the most primitive of all the families of feliform Carnivora and clearly less specialized than the Felidae.” These two individuals visited my lodge before dawn on two mornings:

Super cute lion kitties (Panthera leo)!:

At the scratching post:

Adequately cute?:

Peek-a-boo!:

A cub nurses at the teats of his relaxed mother at a kopje on the Serengeti, but its sibling wants to play instead: