Zoologist: The film 'The Lion King' describes completely the wrong male lion role in practice

Disney's remake is not a documentary about nature. This film should have been dubbed "The Lion Queen", because in lions, females have a dominant role.

"The Lion King" live-action version is storming the box office around the globe, with the familiar characters of everyone, from wild boar or farting, a nice giraffe, uncle heavy elephants, and all true animals to the point of stupidity. When watching the journey of Simba and his companions trying to find their rightful place in the animal kingdom, you might think that " The Lion King" is a film that accurately depicts things. usually takes place on African grasslands.

An image in the movie "The Lion King".

But remember that this is not a documentary about nature.Male lions are not really rulers. And they certainly don't want to go home once they step away from their lions. Disney has created a lot when describing the behavior and interactions of a lion's family - that is the statement of zoologists and lion researchers.

If "The Lion King" follows the life of a lion, the competition between Simba's father, Mufasa, and his uncle, Scar, will never exist, and the young lion himself will not ever being forced to leave the flock at such a young age.

In fact, Mufasa probably doesn't even treat anyone.

" Always a female lead the lion " - Craig Saffoe, lion researcher at Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington. Simba's mother, Sarabi, is the rightful leader of lions. And the movie would be more accurate if it was named . "The Lion Queen" , National Geographic concluded.

"Although the male lions look much bigger and fierce, but the lion is more dominant" - Saffoe said. They are the lions that make important decisions. They direct most of the hunting and feeding of young children. They also have to protect their territory from other invading females, and decide when to allow new males to join the herd.

Although the male lions look much bigger and fierce, the lioness is more dominant.

In a typical African lion colony, there are 3 to 6 adult females. Most female juveniles are chosen to stay with their mother's herd until death, so there are many generations of female lions that have similar lineages in the herd, making the lion society become should be quite matriarchal.

2 or 3 adult males will live with females. They are often brothers or friends in the herd, together forming an alliance to protect the children. But they only live a few years with the herd - long enough to create the young - then leave the flock and find a new herd.

So if Disney follows real life, Scar and Mufasa will live together happily in their herd."The possibility of them being hostile to each other is very low" - Saffoe said - " It is possible that Mufasa has an advantage in the alliance, but both males will have to listen to one of the females ."

However, there is one aspect of the lion family that Disney has shown correctly, which is the influence Mufasa has shown to his son.

When the adult males returned from their weekly patrol around the territory, they liked to get acquainted with the young through actions such as licking, scratching and moaning. " It's oddly cute " - Saffoe said.

In one herd, each female lion will have 2 to 4 young offspring, all of which are noticed by their father. Sometimes female lions can give birth to a child, and in that case we will have a relationship like between Simba and Mufasa.

But even when there are many babies around, the male lions still treat them equally gently. That's because when female lions ovulate, those eggs can be conceived by the same male, or by many different males. " Father lions can't tell which are their offspring, so they simply decide to treat them all well, " said Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota.

For young males, the influence of parents lasts until they are about 2 years old. They then begin to enter puberty, and spike testosterone levels pose a threat to adults.

If Mufasa lived until Simba was 2 years old, he would have his son out of the pack. Simba will then run throughout the African grasslands for about 1 to 2 years until joining a new herd at about 5 years old.

The habitat of lions is becoming more fragmented than ever.

In Kaza, a giant network of parks spread across five African countries, researchers rarely see male lions returning to their mother's flock once they leave. Therefore, no matter why Simba left, ignoring conspiracy theories that Simba and Nala have relatives are right, he will not return to the flock with his childhood love. .

"Male flock is an evolutionary mechanism to ensure genetic diversity in lions," - Dr. Kim Young-Overton, director of Kaza of Panthera, a global wildcat conservation organization, said.

In the wild world, males can easily travel as far as 100 miles away from their mother's herd to find new homes. If food and water are too scarce, they can look further - Young-Overton said.

However, the habitat of lions is becoming more fragmented than ever. Their territory is now only 8% of the previous level, which once occupied almost the entire continent of Africa. The place where lions once lived became a place of human development and agriculture. And in some areas, cattle have begun to become prey to lions instead of prey in nature, leading to conflicts between humans and lions. Lions are gradually killed to avenge their loss of valuable pets. Hunting also reduces the population of this species.

There are only under 20,000 lions left in Africa, and they are listed as threatened by extinction by the International Association for Conservation of Nature. Lions are now extinct, or extinct, in 29 African countries.

" The lion has fallen nearly 50% since the previous movie ," the animated Lion King , released in 1994, says Dr. Paul Funston, director of Panthera's lion program.

Funston and other researchers are expecting that this new film " The Lion King" will help arouse human interest and compassion for lions, even if it is not really described. society of this animal.

" Disney really shows how beautiful lions are " - Young-Overton said. " It's like you're standing right there, on the African steppe, watching them move. And the more people understand the lions and their habitats, the more I hope we will be ready to protect. they ".