Wikijunior talk:Big Cats/Lion

In my opinion, exclamation marks should not be used to emphasize how supposedly impressive or interesting a simple fact is. Examples, which I have corrected, were:

"A male lion's roar can be heard for up to five miles away!"

"Lions normally walk 4 km/h (2.4 mph), but can run up to 60 km/h (35 mph). They can also leap distances of up to 12 m (36 feet)!"

This is insulting and not objective. The young age of the intended readers doesn't mean they aren't capable are judging for themselves whether the facts are, indeed, worth exclaiming over. My advice is, don't include an exclamation mark unless you would also do so if the sentence was to be read by adults; otherwise, you are probably being condescending. --Logician 23:51, 22 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm not sure what it says about me but I do find those facts worth exclaming over and would use them in writing (or speaking) to an adult. I would prefer you did not judge me to be insulting to children. Double  Blue  (Talk) 07:12, 29 Jun 2005 (UTC)

this does not make sense
'''Lions mostly eat other large mammals like zebra, gazelle, and wild pigs. Lions live and hunt in groups called "prides". The female lions do most of the hunting, the males' main duty being defending the pride. Lionesses will also hunt alone, depending on the area they are in and what kind of game is available.'''

This information cancels eachother out. Fist it says that lions hunt in groups and then it says lionesses will also hunt alone I think someone needs to make up their mind.

John B. Here: Gang, the ambiguity is more due to syntax than science...the lions hunting in groups are nearly always groups of females, however individual females will, under certain circumstances, also hunt alone. Am going there to add a couple of clarifying adjectives to the original mix now. Regards, John Burkitt 16:57, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't repeat things
What do lions eat, and how do they catch their prey? ''A lioness tries to move a buffaloLions mostly eat other large mammals like zebra, gazelle, and wild pigs. Lions live and hunt in groups called "prides". The female lions do most of the hunting, the males' main duty being defending the pride. Lionesses will also hunt alone, depending on the area they are in and what kind of game is available.''

How do lions raise their young? ''A lioness with cubsThe lion cubs are raised in prides which are family groups of related female lions, their cubs (both male and female), and an unrelated male, who fathers the cubs. (In fact, Lions are unique among the big cats in that adult males and females live together the whole year round.) The female lions do most of the hunting, bringing back meat for the pride's cubs, while the male lion defends the pride's territory from other lions. When a younger male lion is fully grown, he usually has to leave the pride, though once in a while they can take over their own pride.''

You need to choose one place to put this information. I think when you read this then read the same information again you are not learning it any better.

Cool Facts
I think that the second sentence, about being one of the few cats that can roar, is very cool. I would put this into the cool facts section because I didn't know that before. Also, I like the cool facts because they make the story more interesting.


 * Hdavis

Picturing the Lions
I find it hard to picture the lions with only the provided measurements. I would put in some pictures so as to help visualize what the lions actually look like. I would insert two pictures side by side of a male and female lion to see how they differ in size and looks.
 * Hdavis

References to my contribution
http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/jeffcorwin/carnival/feline/lion.html * The lion's diet consists of a variety of meats, from small insects to large herbivores such as giraffes.

Just in case anyone is wondering where I got it from. --Dragontamer 03:13, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Is pride being used incorrectly?
I'm no animal expert, but I thought pride means just simply; a group of lions with connotations similar to a family of people. But I see it being used in the place of "group". Perhaps we should ask an animal expert whether a pride is a group of closely related lions (like an ant nest, or family of people) or connotates crowd (5 people who happen to be walking down the street at the same time). Obviously, lets not edit in this difference, I just wanna know if we are using the word correctly :)


 * Pride is a social group of lions that is held together by a matriarchy but dominated for a few years at a time by a coalition of one or more male lions who father all the offspring in the pride and are eventually driven out by rogue lions (lions without a pride). Females usually (but not always) stay with their birth pride, even after a male is deposed.  There are special relationships in which a particular female and male have a deep bond and the female, referred to as a "Lion Queen" will leave with the male.  The most dominant male in a lion coalition is called a "Lion King."  That term actually did not originate with the Disney movie. It is not right to use the term "pride" as a synonym for "group" where lions are concerned.  It is, however, the case that lions will not go hunting with other lions that are not in their social group, so a hunting group is almost always from one pride.  HOWEVER to muck it all up, one pride of lions may break into more than one group to go hunting.  If so, they are hunting groups but not prides.

Editing
I have done some major editing on the lion section to make it flow a bit better. The section headings need to be changed though. Bvcxz 03:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

How lions hunt
There were a couple inaccuracies here which I tried to clean up. First of all, lions do not "use" their fur as camouflage. Lions have no choice in the color of their fur. It is more accurate to say that their coat colors provide camouflage and then to define, in simple terms, the word "camouflage".

Similarly, lions do not hunt at night because the night somehow "helps" their camouflage. They hunt at night because, being nocturnal creatures, they have excellent night vision while other creatures do not. So I have also provided a simple description of the meaning of "nocturnal".

I added the detail that the females in a pride tend to be closely related to one another, being sisters and daughters. Even young children can understand these types of relationship and it is a much more significant and predominating relationship than that of the few adult males in a pride.

Males may be stronger than females and do keep marauders such as hyenas away from the cubs. But their most common "enemies" are simply other male lions. I don't think it necessary to tell young school children that the male lions who take over a pride kill of all the cubs and young males. But if we, as adult contributors, keep this reality in mind, it may keep us from over-sentimentalizing and anthroprmorphizing these incredible creatures.

I'm not trying to be pedantic about these things but scientific comprehension of the natural world is abysmally low among our young students. I'm just trying to help out where I can. I recognize that it is usually easier to edit than it is to come up with the starting materials. Ande 05:00, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Comment
this is a good site i would recamend it alot .....hi.............. if you have any more information on lions that is not wrighten here. i hope you email me alot....

A few figure changes
I've always heard the age that cubs are ousted from a pride to be 18 months, which would be one and a half years. Also, when discussing the weight of lions there is a comparison to the weight of men. This is figured with a man weighing 100 lbs., which seems awfully light to me. Perhaps 150 would be a better figure for that? ~ Namiel

Metric/English measurements
I see a mixture of English and metric measures in "Fun Facts". Let's have both together. Pbrower2a (talk) 16:13, 8 January 2011 (UTC)