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A big,
black mane is hot, shaggy and attracts trophy hunters, but it
makes a lion irresistibly sexy to the lionesses |
A big, black mane is hot, shaggy and attracts
trophy hunters, but it makes a lion irresistibly sexy to the lionesses,
researchers reported. The bigger and darker the mane, the more mates a lion attracts, and
the better his cubs survive, Peyton West and Craig Packer of the
University of Minnesota wrote in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
A male with a long, dark mane intimidates other lions and for good
reasons, they found. He has higher levels of testosterone and wins
fights more often.
But he pays for this. He is hotter than lions with lighter manes,
eats less in summer and produces more abnormal sperm, the researchers
found.
"We suggest the mane's evolution is the result of sexual
selection," said West, a doctoral candidate whose dissertation led
to the paper.
Lions' manes vary from light blond to black and can be up to a foot
long.
One big question about lions is why the males even have a mane, said
West, who studied lions in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park.
Like a peacock's elegant but heavy tail, it signals biological
fitness to females. Females choose mates with beautiful tails, or in the
case of lions, with big, black manes, because it turns them on. Thus the
trait is passed on.
West checked to see what good the mane does to a lion. Some people
have suggested it protects the head and shoulders during fights or
hunting, but West said their data didn't show the neck and head were a
special target.
West set up pairs of model lions with short and long manes and
watched to see which ones wild lions would approach. Males chose the
short-maned dummy nine out of 10 times, she found, while females
approached the darker-maned dummy, 13 out of 14 times.
West also found that the higher the testosterone level in the blood
of male lions, the darker the mane. "Therefore, it isn't surprising
that females would prefer darker manes and males would be
intimidated," West said.