One place that lions may be found in Africa is the Serengeti, an extensive plain located in Tanzania and Kenya.

Lion Prides

Lions are native to Africa, where they primarily reside in the southeast part of the continent in regions with grassy plains ______ which numerous large herds of prey animals roam. ❶Among the most social of all animals, lions live in groups called prides, which  two to four males, three or more females, and their offspring, called cubs. ❷The pride controls the territory in which it hunts, and defending this region is essential to the survival of every member. ❸Within a lion pride, there are special relationships between the males and females, the females and their cubs, and the cubs and the males. ❹__________, each lion has a specific role it must _____ to guarantee which / that the pride thrives and is not o________ by predators.

The male lions rule the pride and defend it and its territory from p_______, including other lions, which they do by patrolling their c_______ land and marking it with chemical s_______ their bodies produce. If other lions approach, the males will fight / would fight in defense of their territory and pride. However, this fight may simply be a s_______ of strength intended to f_______ off their opponents rather than an actual battle because, in a physical c________, the slightest injury could kill a lion if it suffers an infection from a cut.(= Since lions might die if they get a cut which then gets infected, they usually only engage in d________ meant to scare away other aniamls instead of physically fighting with them.)As they age, the males become less able to defend their pride, so, eventually, they are killed or driven off by younger, stronger lions. Old males that survive after being ousted(=      ) from their prides typically live lonely lives by themselves on the fringes(=       ) of controlled territories until they die.

The females in a pride are the most numerous and are related to one another as well. They do the majority of the hunting for the pride by running down and killing prey, and then the males and the cubs share the kill. While the males almost always claim the c_______ morsels, they are not so g________ that they consume an entire kill by / for themselves. Anytime a female lion goes into estrus, or heat, she is able to become pregnant. When one female in the pride reaches this stage, the other females - except for those already pregnant or with young cubs to care for - do the same?. The males sense when the females are in heat and copulate with them several times over a period of a few days. Zoologists believe the extreme amount of c__________ is necessary because the females have difficulty getting / to get pregnant.

(= R___________ habits of lions)  Despite that h________, several usually become pregnant and then give birth at roughly the same time, __________ the young cubs are raised together and protected by all of the adult females.

As the cubs mature, they take their place in the pride. The female cubs eventually reach their offspring-bearing years and subsequently join their female relatives on hunts and become adult members of the pride. The male cubs, however, receive treatment of a different nature. When they are around three or four years of age, they become too big and boisterous(=         ) to remain in the pride. Since lions do not mate with their s_________, these males must depart to find mates of their own. (= They are in search of u_________ female lions that they can mate with.)The males, which are brothers or cousins, leave the pride together, form a coalition(=      ), and live near the territories of other lions while hunting and surviving to the best of their ability.

Soon, these males will feel the u_______ to mate and will desire to form a pride of their own, but the only way to do this is to attack the males in an existing pride and to drive them off or to kill them. ( → Paragraph 4 and 5 We can infer all of the male lions that belong to the same pride are related / unrelated to one another.)  Once the coalition succeeds to / in taking over a pride, its members want the females to go into heat as soon as possible; however, a female with cubs cannot do that again until her cubs are nearly two years old. The new male lions, willing / unwilling to wait that long to pass on their g______ to a new generation, therefore kill every cub in the pride they have taken over. (= to force every female to go into e______ so that they can mate.) Soon afterward, every female goes into heat, and the new males then have a chance to f_____ their own cubs and to a______ their position as the leaders of their pride.