It's time! Harvey and his friends got up early this morning to set out for the first day of their safari adventure. East Africa is in a different time zone, so when it's 8:00 in the morning in Michigan and 5:00 in the morning in Arizona, it's already 3:00 in the afternoon there! That means they're already back from their daily adventure before most of us even eat our breakfast in the morning!
Today, Harvey and his friends saw some amazing lions! They want to tell you some of the things they learned about lions from their guide.
Lions are sometimes called "the king of the jungle," but most of them don't live in the jungle at all! They live in grasslands or the savannah.
God created lions to be very social animals. They live in groups called "prides." A pride usually has 3 male lions and around a dozen (12) females in it, plus all of their young. The pride works together to defend their territory, hunt for food, and help each other survive.
A female is called a lioness, and a baby is called a cub.
Lions can be pretty scary, but they're also pretty LAZY. Their favorite activity is napping, which they do 16-20 hours a day!
Lions are carnivores (meat-eaters), and they eat a lot! A male adult lion will eat around 15 pounds of food a day!
The fact that they like meat means they're also hunters, but the females do most of the hunting. They usually hunt for their food at night, and they work together to stalk their prey. Since some of their prey can run faster than they do, God made them skilled at sneaking up on their pray and attacking it quickly using the element of surprise.
Lions can run as fast as 50 miles per hour. That's a lot faster than a human can run, but not as fast as a race horse or some of the other animals you might see on a safari. Cheetahs, ostriches, and wildebeests can outrun a lion.
An adult male lion has a very loud roar! It's so loud, it can be heard up to 5 miles away! God gave them this loud roar to help the leader of the pride keep his pride together and defend his pride's territory by scaring other animals away.
Lions are also big! An average female weighs about 280 pounds, and an average male weights about 420 pounds.
Females live about 10-15 years in the wild, and males live about 8-10 years. Lions are not endangered but are considered "vulnerable," because their population is declining.
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