Marc Lindsay-Rae from Africa Direct. was at Londolozi Game Reserve recently. Have a look at some of the stunning photographs he managed to capture of the Scar-nosed Majingilane fighting with the sub-adult Tsalala lioness. As mentioned in previous posts, this unfortunate young lioness has led a disrupted and traumatic life due to her poor relationship with the dominant coalition. The scar-nose and dark-maned males in particular have been seen to maul her on a number of occasions.
Marc was kind enough to divulge his camera settings for the sighting.
“I was shooting with a Nikon D3s with the 200-400mm Nikon f4 lens. My settings were as follows. ISO 1600 because of the low light, to increase my shutter speed to 1000th of a second. Shot at 340mm at f4″
Adopting a submissive posture in order to stem the male’s aggression, the female cowers before him.
Her submission does not work, and the male goes on the offensive.
Realising she is severely outmatched, the female decides it would be far better to flee.
The male takes off in hot pursuit.
Photographed by Marc Lindsay-Rae
I hope she makes it. She appears thin. I wonder if she is a lone lioness. How unusual for males to maul and attack a female instead of trying to mate. I hope she moves onward into another area and meets a mate who wants to start a pride with her. Thank You for all your hard work !!
Hi Katy
This female is just too young to be mated with so the males still see her as a “cub” that they obviously don’t believe carries their genes – their natural instinct is to kill such cubs. If she can just hang on for a few more months though then she should be ready to mate and the males behaviour towards her should change. Unfortunately for now, the males don’t have the foresight to look look that far ahead!
Amazing shots Marc
It makes me wonder if BB died trying to protect her. There were reports of BB and her with the Tsalala breakaway females and maybe they turned on the sub-adult and BB got caught in the crossfire.
It does seem strange that the males are very friendly with the Eyerfield sub-adults-even though most of those are males? Perhaps behavior of females??
Where were her mother and aunt? They will need to help her now that her grandma is gone.
Typical big bully
It looked to me from these photos that she had the upper hand.. she looked to get a beaut bite in his head..I thought it would be enough to get him to back off and not try another attempt but unfortunately he was still looking determined to take her down. I hope she will be ok and hope she gets support from others
Amazing photographs. Looks like she is in for a tough life. Love Arden’s comment!!
Spectacular set of photographs Marc, many thanks for sharing, really enjoyed looking through them. rich
always rooting for her, is she Kinky Tail and Mr T offspring?
The size of his paw on her shoulder is astonishing. Fab pics.
Very good action captured here!Feel sorry for the young female she looks vulnerable.
I hate to see lions fighting each other. I wish there were some kind of Lion Brotherhood, so lions don’t fight each other and don’t kill the cubs. They should combine force to kill more hyenas, elephants, buffalos, hippos, and rhinos.