We slept just fine last night. It cooled off a lot and we needed blankets for sleeping. This morning we saw five lion cubs born to two sister lionesses. Three were born in early April and two were born in May. The adults had killed an eland, the largest antelope, the night before. One of the lioness was watching the cubs who were mostly just lying around digesting and the other one was guarding the half eaten carcass of the eland. Here are pictures from the day.
I have included a picture of a Mashatu tree for which the park is named. Another interesting point is that we have seen a lot of giraffes here.
Some random facts
- We have learned about some of the animals sleeping habits. Lions sleep for about 18 hours a day meanwhile elephants only sleep for about 2 hours every day. Elephants digestive system is very inefficient so they need to eat a lot more. Also elephants sleep, or probably more accurately, rest standing up.
- Giraffe moms deliver their babies standing up and the baby can walk about 45 minutes after it is born.
- The female lion’s job is to raise the cubs. The male’s job is to prevent other male lions from entering its territory. Male lions will kill cubs that are not their own because they only want their bloodlines to survive and they want the females to go into heat. Male lions have a territory and female lions have a territory. The males will mate with the females whose territory overlaps with the males. If there is no dominant male the females will mate with several males, just to confuse the males and give their cubs a better chance of survival.