{"id":19186,"date":"2022-07-29T08:00:48","date_gmt":"2022-07-29T06:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/?p=65146"},"modified":"2022-07-29T08:31:17","modified_gmt":"2022-07-29T06:31:17","slug":"why-do-lions-take-so-many-sexual-partners","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/rss_feed\/why-do-lions-take-so-many-sexual-partners\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do lions take so many sexual partners?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Lucy Cooke\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 29 July 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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I once stole a lion<\/a>\u2019s girlfriend. I was in the Maasai Mara, Kenya, experimenting with audio playback as a means of deciphering lion communication. This involved blasting the recording of a lion\u2019s roar into another male\u2019s territory and waiting for a response. This rather audacious line of scientific enquiry resulted in three lions \u2013 one female and two males \u2013 racing over to our Land Rover to investigate.<\/p>\n

The males quickly got bored when they failed to find a rival and padded off. The female, however, pinned us to the spot, legs akimbo, for over two hours. She was in oestrus and, in addition to mating with her consorts, she also wanted to mate with me. Apparently, this was nothing special for a lioness: females are known to mate one hundred times with multiple males during their fertile period.<\/p>\n

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Mating lions. \u00a9 Ihab Henri\/500px\/Getty<\/em><\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

I was surprised to discover the licentious nature of the female lion. At university I was taught that males, with their bountiful supply of cheap sperm, are wired for promiscuity whereas females, with their limited number of costly eggs, must be choosy and chaste. Someone clearly forgot to inform the lioness of this \u2018universal law\u2019.<\/p>\n

The main problem with this neat classification is, it\u2019s wrong. We now understand that females from species as diverse as langurs, lizards and lobsters employ a wanton sexual strategy of multiple mating. Female promiscuity increases the chances of genetic or immune compatibility, which results in healthier offspring.<\/p>\n

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