When a lioness is in heat, a male will join her, staying with her constantly. The pair usually mates for less than a minute, but it does so about every 15 to 30 minutes over a period of four to five days.
Females are receptive to mating for three or four days within a widely variable reproductive cycle. During this time a pair generally mates every 20–30 minutes, with up to 50 copulations per 24 hours.
Lions begin to breed at two years but reach their prime at five years. Mating take place at most times of the year and a male may mate with several females. A lioness has cubs about every two years and gestation is 105 - 112 days.
Lionesses are polyoestrus, oestrus lasting 4 – 7 days with intervals between periods of a few days up to more than a year (average 55.4 days).
When fertile, their main weapon is sex. Mating with multiple males, inside and outside the pride, confuses paternity and deters any incoming males from infanticidal behaviour.
Lions. In some cases, both male and female lions attempt to have sex with members of the same gender. Researchers believe that lions find sex pleasurable because of the number of times they mate in a short period, not to mention that they breed all year round.
“Male lions form stable coalitions and they are very affectionate with each other, but this affection is expressed by rubbing their heads together, licking each other's faces and flopping on top of each other,” he wrote.
Though the female is usually observed initiating the mating with growling vocalizations, there is no evidence to suggest that lionesses will bite the male on the balls to get things going. That part appears to have started as a joke, before being passed on as "fact", as is the way of the Internet.
Does the father mate with his daughter? No, the males are forced to leave the pride before they reach sexual maturity. Lion prides are matrilineal.
Much like her feline cousins, a lioness coming into heat will advertise her readiness with sent marking, calling, rubbing on objects and rolling around on the ground. She will engage in a lot of display and she will also be defensive and scrappy.
The pain is thought necessary for feline mating as it is the shock to her system that induces ovulation and permits fertilisation.
Lions are most affectionate to their like-sexed companions. Females spend their lives in their mothers' pride or with their sisters in a new pride; males may only spend a few years in a given pride but remain with their coalition partners throughout their lives.
Prides exhibit inbreeding avoidance; mating between related pride members is rare, males tend to leave prides before their daughters start mating and males generally move far away from their natal pride's home range [18, 19, 22, 23].
Oral sex also occurs with some frequency throughout the animal kingdom. It's been observed in primates, spotted hyenas, goats and sheep. Female cheetahs and lions lick and rub the males' genitals as a part of their courtship ritual.
"Male lions “mating” with other males is not an altogether uncommon occurrence," the told Traveller24. "This behaviour is often seen as a way of asserting dominance over another male, or a way of reinforcing their social bonds. Lions' social structures can be a complex system," he says.
Lions live in prides that consist of one primary male lion, several females and one or two lesser males. The primary male mates with his lionesses. Females might also mate with more than one partner. Several females are likely to be in heat at the same time.
Male lions do not look after the cubs in a pride and take no part in helping raising the young, but they do protect the whole pride against other males. Cubs are safe as long as their father is in charge of the pride.
They can't rely on the cubs' looks, smells, and cries to determine whose they are. But they recognise the mothers as their sexual partners. “All the males consider the cubs their own because of female promiscuity,” says Chakrabarti.
A lion pride may include up to three males, a dozen females, and their young. All of a pride's female lionesses and cubs are typically related. At around two to three years old, young males leave the pride and attempt to take over another male's pride.
It seems to be a way to smooth over social tensions. The same sort of behavior occurs in baboons and many other social mammals, Packer said. Female lions do it too, he added. "It's a social interaction that has nothing to do with sexual pleasure," he said. Original article on Live Science.
These extreme measures to protect her young sometimes means luring and keeping the male occupied in mating to lead him away from young cubs in a wonderful display of seduction! Lioness seduces second pride male after mating with the dominant brother for a whole week.
Sometimes the lions will kill cubs – usually when they take over new territory from another pride – to stake their claim on the females. Male lions have also been known to get aggressive and kill lionesses for refusing to mate.
Female lions, lionesses, are able to give birth to cubs all year round, usually from the age of about three or four years old. Pregnancy lasts for around 110 to 120 days. Eventually, when it is time to give birth, lionesses leave their family pride to find a private den in the shelter of bushes, or even a cave.
Because competition for prides is so fierce, all male lions travel with one or more other males so they can protect each other. “You have to have a partner in arms to withstand the challenges of all the other males that want to take over your family and kill your babies,” says Packer.
Lion snuggles look adorable, but they betray evidence of the often violent life that lions lead. Cuddling may help to reinforce friendships that become necessary to protect a lion's territory from intruders.