https://www.newscientist.com/article...flowing-manes/

Lionesses go for dark, flowing manes

Male lions with long, dark manes are more attractive to females and more intimidating to rivals, US research involving dummy animals shows.

The finding should help resolve the long-standing question of the function of lions’ manes, say researchers Peyton West and Craig Packer at the University of Minnesota.

“This is mind-blowing stuff,” says zoologist Tim Birkhead at Sheffield University. “It’s a very exciting contribution to the study of sexual selection,” he told New Scientist.

Manes vary from light blond to black and can be up to foot long. The team planted pairs of life-sized toy lions with different types of mane near males and females in the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, and monitored the lions reactions to the ‘intruders’. In all cases, males preferred to approach dummies with lighter, less shaggy manes.


Even then, they were extremely cautious, with each step taking twenty seconds or more. “We had to invent a new term – pussyfooting – to describe their behaviour,” says Peyton.

But females did the opposite. They preferred to approach darker males, suggesting they are a better bet as a mate.

High testosterone

Next, West and Packer examined data on blood samples from several dozen males that had been sedated.They found a strong correlation between blood testosterone levels and mane colour.

“Dark colour tends to be found in high-testosterone males,” West says. “Therefore, it isn’t surprising that females would prefer darker manes and males would be intimidated. But there is no correlation between testosterone and mane length. We figure males are sensitive to an opponent’s mane length because recently injured lions have shorter manes.”

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