National Geographic: Lions of the African Night

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It is night in the African bush

where the familiar becomes mysterious

and the unfamiliar is strange indeed.

It is the time and place

where lions come into their own...

and man does not willingly venture.

In this dark realm they reign supreme;

they are the kings;

They are the Lions

of the African Night.

A day in the bushveld of

southern Africa draws to a close

and a pride of 30 lions

that has dozed and slept through

the long, hot day lazes on.

This pride is unusually large two

or three times larger than most,

and for small cubs life in such

a pride can be hard.

When food is scarce, competition

at kills is fierce,

and it's the little cubs

that always suffer.

The males that sired these cubs

have deserted their big family to

form a new pride

elsewhere

with younger lionesses.

Now, all the adults

in this pride are females.

They rest on, waiting

for the day to cool,

for lions are seldom active

when it is hot

and like most prides,

this one hunts mainly at night.

They'll hardly stir until

the sun has set.

As the day winds down, young baboons

cavort in a last burst of play.

The sounds of day merge through the

evening into those of an African night

A hyena sniffs the night

as the clan set out on their hunt.

A toktokkie beetle taps out the signal

that will find him a mate.

And from somewhere close

by comes an answer.

Each hole, cut to

the same pear-shaped pattern,

serves the same remarkable purpose

of magnifying the sound

made by the slender tree cricket

that shapes them.

To advertise for a mate,

the male cricket has developed

a system comparable to a loudspeaker

where a vibrating membrane his wings

is surrounded by a baffle.

The leaf is the cricket's soundboard,

and the sound produced is magnified

in intensity as much as three times.

But simply tapping on the ground

seems to work well enough for

the toktokkie beetles.

In their first hunt of the night

the lions have failed to make a kill.

They have panicked and scattered

a mixed herd of zebra and wildebeest,

which are still vulnerable

as they try to regroup.

The lions have approached their prey

on a broad front

and are now spread out at intervals

through the bush listening.

When hunting at night, lions rely

almost entirely on their acute hearing

They move noiselessly through

the darkness,

stopping frequently

to stand motionless

listening for the slightest sounds

of their prey

Although the lions may not see

any better at night than their prey,

the deep shadows provide more cover

for stalking.

The herd has picked up the scent.

Lions pay no heed to wind direction.

They're not aware that the wind

will carry their scent to the quarry.

And, like most hunts,

this one ends in failure.

With so many mouths to feed, a pride

like this one has to hunts every night.

To survive, each year

they will have to kill about

From crevices, burrows, and holes

animals that have slept through

the day are emerging.

These night apes will feed until

daybreak on tree resin and insects

moving with prodigious leaps

through the trees.

Hippos, having slept and rested in

the river all day, emerge now to feed.

At night they graze on grasses

and sedges along the river's edge.

But sometimes when food is scarce,

they will lumber several miles inland

to find enough to eat.

By dawn each will have consumed

about 80 pounds of forage.

From his burrow entrance a porcupine

tests the safety of the night

before he leads his family out to feed

The tiny pups, only a few weeks old,

will accompany

their parents along regular trails

in their search for the bulbs, roots,

and bark on which they live.

The lions have trapped a warthog

in its burrow.

It's a prize they cannot resist, and

they will dig until they unearth it.

Fierce and frantic,

the warthog in its burrow lunges

with its sharp tusks

as the digging lions.

But with such odds against it,

the outcome is inevitable.

But only a lucky few get a meal

from such small prey.

The others search the ground

for scraps.

A hungry lioness returns

to the demolished burrow

for a last hopeful search

before the pride moves on.

A black roach digs the hole

where she'll place the package of eggs

she carries attached to her abdomen.

The only maternal care she gives

her progeny is now

as she carefully conceals

their position

disguising the site

with pebbles and vegetation.

Parental care is more developed

in this large centipede.

The female carries her young

about with her.

While she devours a grasshopper,

her offspring life packed securely

against her body,

held in place by her many legs.

Other centipedes protect and tend

their young in burrows under stones.

But in addition,

this species can carry hers.

She holds them high above the ground

and walks on her remaining legs.

Centipedes too have predators,

and this tiny snake is a specialist,

feeding on them almost exclusively.

Holding on grimly,

the snake appears unaffected

by the many bites it receives

from the centipede.

The snake's venom takes effect

and the centipede is overcome.

The little snake is able to swallow

centipedes almost twice the diameter

of its own body.

It always seems to start with the head

One of the cubs has an injured leg

and lags behind the behind the pride.

The pride does not wait for her

and she struggles to keep up.

A civet is more at home on the ground,

but a dead tree is a handy refuge

when 30 lions pass by.

Now he can resume his nightly search

for fruits, insects,

and the smaller animals he preys on.

When the cub catches up

with the others,

she must endure the rough bullying

that young lions inflict on one another

especially on those with any disability

There is usually a little comfort

to be had from one of the adults.

Besides, cubs are remarkably resilient

the have to be

and this one will soon recover

to torment in turn some other poor cub

Unless driven by hunger,

the hunt proceeds at a leisurely pace.

At intervals through the night

the pride will stop to rest

and sometimes even to sleep soundly

for a few hours.

Supreme masters of relaxed living,

lions are seldom on their feet

for more than four or five hours 24.

These are the tiny tracks made

by the larvae of ant lions.

It is only at night that these small

insects wander about,

moving backwards, in search of places

to dig their traps.

The head of the ant-lion larva

is dominated

by large hollow jaws through

which it sucks the juices of its prey.

In a patch of fine, soft sand

the ant lion digs in

and begins to excavate the unique trap

which it will catch its

prey usually ants.

But it could well be any small insect.

Turning in ever decreasing circles,

the ant lion uses its head

and jaws as a shovel to throw the sand

and small pebbles out

of the steep-sided pit that it digs.

The trap is ready.

The ant lion buries itself

in the bottom

with only its jaws exposed and waits.

The ant struggles free

from the ant lion's jaws.

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