South-west African Lion (Flehmen Response), Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana,

Haha, very nice! Are you sure he's not just about to sneeze?

To be fair, he'd just taken a deep sniff of another lion's urine, so him pulling a bit of a face is not to be wondered at...!

Great photo and very impressive lion. From what I have seen and read, most wild lions have sparse manes compared to the big manes we see in captive cats. But the mane on this guy is quite impressive.

Thanks!

Yes, this guy was the oldest and definitely most impressively-maned of the male lions we saw.

Arizona Docent said:

Great photo and very impressive lion. From what I have seen and read, most wild lions have sparse manes compared to the big manes we see in captive cats. But the mane on this guy is quite impressive.

Click to expand...

Probably also has to do with the fact they live less long than captive lions. But it seems also a climate thing, as the now extinct Cape and barbary lions had presumably the biggest manes of them all and also the Ethiopian (highland) lions are supposed to have very big manes. Though I haven't seen them in real life and you cannot tell mane size from foot prints...