Lady Lions Prefer Manes in Black

On the Serengeti, the lady lion prefers a swain with a black mane. That’s the finding of a study analyzing how the dense collar of hair about the neck of male lions affects the love life of the biggest cat. Biologists Peyton M. West and Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota reported in the Aug. 23 issue of Science that it is the mane’s color, not its length, that matters most to the female lions of Tanzania.

“We were completely surprised by this,” West said. She said the lionesses may instinctively be drawn to the black manes because males with darker manes seem superior in a number of ways. “A dark mane is apparently a marker the female uses to evaluate the fitness of a male,” she said. This suggests that lions’ manes evolved over time through sexual selection, she speculated. Dark-maned male lions generally have a higher level of testosterone, “which means they are more aggressive fighters,” said West, and this can be key to raising cubs successfully.

West and Packer investigated the effects of mane color by setting up life-sized models of lions near where the animals lived in the Serengeti. Female lions, when given a choice, would try to seduce the models that had the darker mane, ignoring those with blond hair. Male lions tended more often to attack the lion models with short manes or with light-colored manes, while avoiding the models with black manes.