lion heart

Chapter 25 Epilogue
In the end, Baixue still left the Majia lion group and the rich homeland.

Snow White loves her cubs more than any other mother. Snow White's love is beyond the comprehension of a normal lion mother.

However, when its golden and yellow balls grow up, they want to live the life of a normal lion, blend in with their companions, and learn hunting skills.All these, Snow White could not give to his children, for with his dazzling white fur, he would only bring disaster to them, especially in the golden steppes in the dry season.And all this, Golden Ears will give them.

During these days when Bai Xue was injured, Jin Er not only fed and protected Jin Qiu and Huang Qiu, but also played with them, making Jin Qiu and Huang Qiu feel the warmth of a mother.Golden Ball and Yellow Ball are no longer cowardly like jackals, but begin to reveal the noble and brave nature of lions.

Baixue returned to the Majia lion group after going through all kinds of hardships. When her golden ball and yellow ball were less than three months old, she started her wandering life alone again.Bai Xue left the lion group so that Jin Qiu and Huang Qiu could grow up like real lions, and for the development and growth of the entire Majia lion group.

Who can understand the heart of a lion?
Natural Museum　
lion
Latin name: Panthera leo
Classification: Mammalia Carnivora Felidae
Lions and tigers are the largest animals in the cat family. They are majestic and live in parts of Africa and India.The lion is known as the king of beasts and the overlord of the grassland. It is the only animal in the cat family that lives in groups.

After three and a half months of pregnancy, the lioness will give birth to cubs in bushes or other hidden places, and can give birth to 2-5 cubs at a time.The newborn lion cub weighs only 1.4 kilograms, can hardly crawl and is very helpless.After 10-15 days of life, they will open their eyes, and the blue-gray eyeballs will gradually turn yellow over a few months.When they are about 10 weeks old, the cubs are brought back to the pride by their mother and join the pride to live with their brothers and sisters.

Cubs in a pride are usually born at the same time, and they grow up together, playing with each other, honing their courage and learning hunting skills from non-aggressive games. When it was 1 year old, the cub went hunting with its mother to observe its predation skills.

When the lion cub is born, its fur is light yellowish brown with brownish black spots.The color of the fur tends to be the same as the age increases, and then it is covered with a beautiful golden color. Because the color is similar to the tall dry grass in the dry season of the grassland, the protective color effect is excellent.

Male and female lions differ in size and weight.Males are 2.6-3.3 meters long and weigh 150-250 kilograms, 20%-50% heavier than females.The female lion has no mane, while the mane of the male lion is huge and thick, and the appearance features are very obvious.

Males and females of the same pride are equal in power and live together based on a close bond.Pride relationships can last for several years.Lionesses usually stay in the same pride for life, and their status is upgraded from daughter to mother, responsible for hunting and raising their cubs together.Male lions bear the great responsibility of monitoring the lion group and protecting the territory.But male lions are not permanent members of the pride.

Lionesses account for 80% to 90% of hunting.Terrain, preferences, and how prey fight back all affect the hunting skills of male and female lions.Male lions generally hunt in the early morning, dusk, and late night.They lurk behind tall grass, waiting for animals to come and bow their heads to graze.When the prey is about 30 meters away from it, it will quickly attack and throw the prey to the ground.Within minutes, the prey dies as the esophagus and trachea are severed.When a lioness hunts, she continues to bite the snout of her prey, suffocating it.Most lionesses hunt in groups, using a strategy of containment and approach.

Lions are particularly adapted to hunting large mammals in the open, thanks to their excellent cooperation.Even so, it is still not easy for them to hunt prey, and the success rate is not high, only about 25%.

Lions have a wide range of prey objects, often hunting African wild buffalo, gazelle, and giraffe, but they are more willing to prey on ungulates with upper-medium size, such as zebras, impalas, and other types of antelope.Sometimes lions also try to fight warthogs and ostriches.

Generally speaking, after hunting for food, all members of the lion group can share it.But the distribution of food has a strict, almost cruel hierarchy.The first to eat the prey is the male lion in the group, followed by the adult lioness and cubs in the group.

White lions are often born from normal-colored yellow female lions, the result of a genetic variation in the African lion gene.Scientific research shows that the white lion may be an ancient subspecies of lion that lived in colder, snow-covered wild environments such as the Arctic. White was a more favorable protective color for the living environment at that time.After biological evolution, this subspecies gradually disappeared, but the gene for white coat color still exists in a few yellow African lions today.

Because most of the existing lions live in the African savannah, the grassland is golden yellow most of the time, the snow-white fur of the white lion in the African lion is more conspicuous in the wild environment, and the concealment is poor, resulting in a low survival rate of the white lion and a successful predation rate. low, it is more difficult to survive.

【Africa - the hometown of animal novels in my dream】

Yuan Bo
At the age of eight, I wrote my first animal novel.From then to now, I have been writing animal novels continuously for 16 years.Out of interest in zoology, I became a student at the School of Life Sciences at Fudan University and later transferred to the Chinese Department.Now, I am a Ph.D. majoring in folk literature in the Chinese Department of Fudan University.Due to my major, I spent my winter and summer vacations traveling to Yunnan, Guizhou, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and other places to investigate zoology, folk literature and anthropology.The sun, moon, stars, and blasts on the grasslands and high mountains, as well as all kinds of creatures there, have taught me many philosophies that cannot be read in books.

The experience of getting along with animals and nature is the starting point for my literary creation.These experiences not only provided me with materials for creating animal novels, but also taught me how to understand nature, which influenced my concept of literary creation.And Africa, the land of big wild animals, aroused my original creative passion.

Africa is the hometown of animal novels in my dreams.

When I was in elementary school, I lived in a wild animal breeding base surrounded by mountains for three years.The breeding base covers a huge area, consisting of several continuous hills, surrounded by primeval forests that block out the sky and the sun.The fences in the breeding base are built along the mountains and are quite spacious, leaving enough space for animals such as sika deer, ostriches, and peacocks, and to a certain extent, maintaining the living conditions of animals in the wild environment.Entering different wild animal breeding areas is like entering a different world.

The northeast corner of the breeding base is located at the foot of a flat mountain. It is an ostrich breeding area with continuous yellow sand. The ostriches separated by fences kick up billowing yellow dust.It is a breeder grandfather who is responsible for raising ostriches.He is an experienced wildlife breeder who has worked in wildlife farms and private zoos in South Africa, Tanzania and other African countries.He has raised wild buffaloes, zebras, ostriches...even an African elephant!

At that time, I liked reading popular science books the most.From the book, I know that wild sparrows can be domesticated as pets.So I thought, ostriches should also be domesticated.Under my repeated begging, the breeder grandpa started to tame a two-three-month-old baby ostrich together with me.Not long after, I rode an ostrich to a nearby mountain village elementary school under the leadership of the breeder grandfather. Wherever I went, I won admiration.At that time, not to mention how happy I was, I thought: "I should be the first child in China to ride an ostrich to school."

In the wild animal breeding base, the breeder grandpa is my best friend, and he often tells me stories about animals from the African savannah and pastures.The breeder’s grandfather said that leopards and baboons are feuds on the African grasslands. In the wilderness of Africa, baboons often compete with leopards for territory; African wild dogs are the smartest animals in the African grasslands. When the African wild dog was in the most difficult time, the grandfather of the breeder once fed it pieces of meat; when in Africa, the grandfather of the breeder once participated in the action of catching wild ostriches in order to obtain a good breed; the male African wild buffalo in the breeding season has a very temper Cranky, wild buffaloes need to be kept with great care...

The breeder grandpa once told me a story about a white lion.There are many different stories about the origin of a white lioness who often wanders around the farm.According to the breeder's grandfather, this white lioness is a very mysterious animal.After studying biological science, I understood that this condition is a genetic mutation of African lions, while white lions will face more dangers and challenges than their peers in the wild, and white lions that can survive to adulthood will inevitably suffer A lot of tempering.

Under the vast and boundless starry sky, I nestled next to the breeder's grandfather, listening to the majestic roar of the male ostrich, and imagining that distant and mysterious continent... Later, I wrote down the story based on the story told by the breeder's grandfather. There are many stories about African animals. These are the first batch of animal novels I created.

Now, I have reorganized and created several animal novels about Africa that I have written successively over the past ten years, and launched them as a whole as the "Prince of Animal Novels Yuan Bo Africa Series", including "Leopard's Feud", "Lion's Heart" and "Wild Dog Dynasty". "The Tale of the Buffalo" in four volumes.The novel "The Ostrich Family" that should have belonged to the "Africa Series" has already been published in the "Prince of Animal Fiction Yuan Bo Wilderness Series", so it will no longer be included in this series.

In this series, I am exploring a different way of writing animal novels from the "wilderness series" ("Fire Horse", "The Destruction of Wolves", "Ostrich Family", "Ape Tribe").I hope to tell young readers about the animal legends from Africa with detailed zoological facts, twists and turns, and colloquial language...

(End of this chapter)