A group of lions consists of 2-9 adult female lions, 2-6 adult male lions, and their cubs. Lions have a fixed territory, which is passed down from generation to generation between mothers and daughters.

The daughter can directly inherit the territory, the son must leave the mother's lion when he grows up, and the brothers form an alliance to go out and wander together. Only by driving away the leading male lions of other lions and grabbing new territory can they get breeding opportunities.

The male lion runs away from home at the age of two or three and spends his life roaring, chasing, and fighting. The average length of time a male lion in the Serengeti in East Africa occupies the pride is 26 months. In Atosha Park in Namibia, male lions occupy the pride for 2.5 to 4 years, with an average of 3.2 years.

In Gir Park, India, a single male lion can only occupy the pride for 14 months, and a multi-lion alliance is limited to 30 months. It can be seen that the replacement of male lions in the lion group is very frequent, usually every two or three years for a group of male lions.

For most male lions, the first two years of their lives are under the careful care of their mothers, and they spend two to three years as the lion king in other pride. But they wandered most of the time and eventually died in loneliness.

Female lions leave the pride in the last few weeks before giving birth to find a dense bush to give birth. After giving birth, the lioness will be alone with her cubs for four to six weeks, during which the cubs will not step out of the nest, and the lioness will only leave when foraging.

Lion cubs are very vulnerable, and if they are spotted by a leopard, hyena, or another lion while their mother is away, they are dead. For safety, lionesses often change dens with their cubs in their scruffs. In general, the survival rate of lion cubs during this period is very high, and accidents are rare.

When the cubs are six to eight weeks old, the lioness takes them back to the pride. Female lions in the same lion group are basically synchronous breeding, and the cubs are about the same age.

The lionesses raise their cubs together to form a "kindergarten", which does not dissolve until the cubs are about one and a half years old. The kindergarten stage is the period when lionesses experience the most "pain of bereavement". The main cause of death is starvation, followed by cub killing.

Cub killing refers to the killing of lion cubs by alien lions, where each pride of lions wants to kill the cubs of the other pride to give their offspring a competitive advantage.

And when the foreign male lions occupy the lions, because the cubs are alive, the female lions will not be in heat. In order to promote the female lions to come into heat as soon as possible, the new lion king had to kill all the previous cubs.

The time for a male lion to be king is not much, usually only about two years. It wants to raise its cubs as soon as possible, and there is no time to waste on being a stepfather.

Professor Parker observed that whenever a new lion king took over the pride, the lion cubs disappeared. This is normal in the lion world, most lion cubs have a murderer father, and a benevolent male lion will not leave too many offspring.

Lions are social animals. Only by uniting and working together can they protect their cubs. A lioness alone cannot protect the cubs. Although the kindergarten cannot completely prevent male lions from killing cubs, it at least enables female lions to have the ability to deal with male lions and provides a certain degree of protection for cubs.

Pike has observed that three female lions in the kindergarten fought with four invading male lions after their husbands were driven away, successfully protecting six lion cubs and making the intruders lose interest and leave.

Every lioness goes through the loss of a child many times. When the lion cubs are one year old, especially after one and a half years old, there is nothing to threaten them on the grassland. At this time, the lioness is already preparing to conceive a child, and the relationship with the cub gradually fades.