The Ultimate Guide: Big Cats (15 of 19)

The Ultimate Guide: Big Cats

One clue may come from the Ngorongoro Crater on the edge of the Serengeti, a place renowned for its black maned lions.
Ngorongoro Crater is not only famous for its black-maned males, but it's also famous for the fact that there's a resident population of wildebeests and zebra and also buffalo.
Those lions are really well fed.
Those are spoiled Southern California lions who are living the Life of Riley and it may be that, that easy life then allows them to put more, ah, pigment into the hair they grow on their mane.
So, we have inklings so far that bigger, better fed males who've never lost a fight, will indeed be those with the big, black manes.

This is the only authentic film ever taken of a killing of a man-eater, and I am the only white man who has ever accompanied the Masai unharmed.
The lion's mane has had enormous symbolic meaning for us.
This footage, shot in 1908, shows Masai warriors in one of their rites of passage, the killing of an adult male lion.
The one who throws the first spear wears the lion's mane as a prized trophy.
The Masai passed him.
I got within eight yards of him.
And then I heard a growl.
Out he came, roaring for all his worth.
You are now looking on the single, greatest fight you are ever likely to see between the Masai and the man-eating lion.
A sight I shall never forget.
It was as if with our growing strength and confidence we wanted to show that we could even harness their strength to our ends.
In medieval times it was fashionable for kings and emperors to own cheetahs and to use them as domesticated hunters.