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Diet & Feeding
What do lions eat?
Lions eat a large variety of prey, but the bulk of their diet is usually made up by medium and large ungulates, such as buffalo, wildebeest, giraffe, and zebra. Lions have been known to feed on more than 40 different species, but populations within a single ecosystem will typically be reliant on two or three key species of prey. Like domestic cats, lions are obligate or “true” carnivores, meaning that they rely on nutrients that can only be found in animal flesh.
How much do lions eat?
After they have eaten a substantial meal, lions will have a big, round belly, and will often be seen sleeping near the kill.
The amount of food eaten by lions varies greatly from day to day, but averages 5 to 10kg per day. However, they can eat a lot more when food is abundant: males can eat as much as 40kg of meat – around a quarter of their body weight – at a time, while females can eat up to 25kg in a day.
The order in which lions in a pride get to eat is determined by the dominance hierarchy: adult males will eat first, followed by adult females, and then sub-adults and cubs of both sexes. A large kill will typically be defended less fiercely than a small kill, as there is more meat to go around.
How do lions eat?
Lions usually start feeding from the stomach, as this is the easiest point of entry and gives access to some of the most nutritious parts of the prey, such as the kidneys and liver. Lions will generally eat all edible parts of the prey, but are not able to easily digest hair. As a result, lion faeces can be identified by the presence of hair, which can be used to work out which species a lion has eaten.
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Lions eventually consume all edible parts of a kill but usually start from the stomach, where it is easiest to break through the skin and into the most nutritious parts of the animal.
Physical adaptations for feeding
Lions have specially-adapted tongues covered in tiny sharp spines called papillae. These spines give the tongue a rough, sandpaper-like texture, which helps to remove fur, break through skin, and scrape meat from bones during feeding
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Lions’ teeth are also highly specialised for their diet. Lions use their long, sharp canines to grasp and kill prey, use their sharp carnassial teeth in the back of the mouth to pull large chunks of meat from the body, and use their smaller incisors in the front of the mouth to tear small scraps of meat from the bone.
Prey depletion
one of the major threats driving the decline of lion populations
Loss of wild prey is one of the major threats facing Africa’s remaining lion populations. At Lion Landscapes, we are working to help conserve healthy prey populations, as these are a critical component of healthy, functioning ecosystems.
A recent study co-authored by our joint CEOs identified bushmeat poaching leading to prey depletion as one of the major threats driving the decline of lion populations in Africa.
In Tanzania’s Ruaha-Rungwa landscape, Lion Landscapes researchers conducted landscape-wide spoor surveys to understand the distribution and threats to large carnivores and their prey, and map illegal human activity across the landscape. This work highlighted the importance of buffalo for lion in the landscape, thus bringing attention to the need to include prey in conservation planning. For this reason, villages in our community camera-trapping programme receive points for prey species – not just the carnivores!
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