To find out how the two sexes responded to different types of manes, West, working in Serengeti National Park, set up pairs of realistic-looking dummy lions about 200 meters from adult lions. To test reactions to different mane length, she paired dummies with short blond or long blond manes. In separate experiments to observe reactions to mane color, she paired dummies with long blond or long dark manes. When the dummies were in place, she broadcasted recordings of a hyena at a kill--the leonine equivalent of a dinner bell--and noted reactions of the lions when they spotted the "intruders."
Male lions were clearly intimidated by long manes and dark manes, said West. Given a choice between short and long manes, males approached the short-maned dummy nine out of 10 times. In the one instance where the long-maned dummy was approached, the males were relatively old, with long, dark manes. Even then, they approached from the side; males never approached a long-maned dummy directly. When confronted with light and dark manes, males always (five of five times) chose to approach the light-maned dummy.
Females showed a preference for the darker-maned dummy, approaching it rather than the blond one nine of 10 times. When West and Packer later examined long-term data (recorded by Packer and his colleagues) on females who had had a choice of males in their prides, the females chose the darkest-maned male in 13 of 14 cases. But neither the long-term data nor West's dummy experiments showed any clear female preference for long or short manes.
When West and Packer examined the data on several dozen males that had been sedated and had blood samples drawn, they found a strong correlation between blood testosterone levels and mane color.
"Dark color tends to be found in high-testosterone males," said West. "Therefore, it isn't surprising that females would prefer darker manes and males would be intimidated. But there is
'"/>
Contact: Deane Morrison
morri029@umn.edu
612-624-2346
University of Minnesota
22-Aug-2002