Lions In The Serengeti Safari, Tanzania
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Lions In The Serengeti Safari, Tanzania
“Safari” is a Bantu tribe mispronounced word, meaning “So-far.”
All the words in the Bantu language end in a vowel, and many English words are pronounced with vowels.
For example the word “Soft” is “Softi.”
The word sweet is sweeti (“do you want something sweeti for dessert?”), etc.
Indeed, our Safari to the Serengeti took us So-Far into the parks, where the natural world reigns supreme.
While it is exciting to see any of the big five Safari animals, the ones that attract the most attention from safari vehicles are the lions.
Lions live in groups of 15 to 25 members (called a “pride”) which consist of mostly lionesses and their cubs.
There is usually a male lion, and on rare occasions up to four male lions in a pride, to protect the territory of the pride.
Most lions who live together have a blood relation with each other.
Male lions don’t continue to live with the group after reaching the age of adolescence.
These lions generally form a coalition with their cousins and brothers, and other solitary lions, in order to survive.
They occasionally will attack and try to take over the dominating males of another pride, to form their own pride.
Most of the hunting is actually done by the lionesses.
They provide the kills for the members and cubs of the pride.
When it comes to hunting speed, a lion can run 80 kilometers per hour.
The lionesses are more flexible and run faster than the male lions.
Lions prefer to live in grasslands, shrubs and in the open woodlands, by the banks of rivers.
They sleep most of the day, cooling off and chilling for twenty hours per day.
Lions actually prefer to live in grasslands, scrubs, woodlands, semi-arid plains and near rivers and their tributaries, because their favorite prey are buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, antelopes and warthogs, which all live in the same areas.
We saw in the Serengeti, the most amount of lions while we were on Safari.
Not surprisingly, we heard that among all of the African destinations, Tanzania has the largest lion population in the world, particularly in the Serengeti.
