Mating opportunities for nomad males are rare, and competition between male lions to defend a pride’s territory and mate with the pride females is fierce.

Male cubs are expelled from the pride at about three years of age and become nomads until they are old enough to try to take over another pride (after age five).

Some female cubs remain within the pride when they attain sexual maturity, but others are forced out and join other prides or wander as nomads. In the wild, sexual maturity is reached at three or four years of age. There is a corresponding high mortality rate (e.g., 86 percent in the Serengeti), but survival rates improve after the age of two. Although lionesses will nurse cubs other than their own, they are surprisingly inattentive mothers and often leave their cubs alone for up to 24 hours. They begin participating in kills by 11 months but probably cannot survive on their own until they are two years old. Cubs are able to follow their mothers at about three months of age and are weaned by six or seven months. Newborn cubs are helpless and blind and have a thick coat with dark spots that usually disappear with maturity. SpaceNext50 Britannica presents SpaceNext50, From the race to the Moon to space stewardship, we explore a wide range of subjects that feed our curiosity about space!.Learn about the major environmental problems facing our planet and what can be done about them! Saving Earth Britannica Presents Earth’s To-Do List for the 21st Century.100 Women Britannica celebrates the centennial of the Nineteenth Amendment, highlighting suffragists and history-making politicians.COVID-19 Portal While this global health crisis continues to evolve, it can be useful to look to past pandemics to better understand how to respond today.Student Portal Britannica is the ultimate student resource for key school subjects like history, government, literature, and more.This Time in History In these videos, find out what happened this month (or any month!) in history.

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Mating and captivity