The DOI matches its Crossref record; 48 of the 48 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Hunting by male lions: ecological influences and socioecological implications
Abstract
In the Kruger National Park, male lions, Panthera leo, acquire most of their food by hunting rather than scavenging. This study, the most intensive to date of male lion ecology, showed that in savanna woodlands, with high buffalo, Syncerus caffer, densities, male lions were frequent and successful hunters. The main prey species of all male group types, but particularly nonterritorial males, was buffalo. By contrast, females preyed more frequently on the most abundant medium-sized ungulates, such as wildebeest, Connochaetes taurinus, and zebra, Equus burchelli. Thus intraspecific prey selection separation was based primarily on intersexual and, to a lesser extent, social differences. Furthermore, both nonterritorial males and pride females located their favoured prey, buffalo and medium-sized ungulates, respectively, more often than other prey. We investigated the influence of several ecological variables on the socioecology of male lions, particularly as we had determined that territorial males spent little time with their pride females and tended to hunt by themselves in their respective male coalitions. Further analysis showed that in a range of ecosystems in southern and eastern Africa the proportion of time territorial males spent with, and thus scavenged from, their pride females was strongly influenced by vegetation structure, and therefore probably by the assemblage of available ungulates. In open systems, territorial males were, therefore, likely to be encountered with pride females, whereas in more wooded areas they were likely to be encountered away from their pride females. We suggest that this is because vegetation structure influences food/prey availability and hunting success and influences territory maintenance and/or cub defence. (c) 1998 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“We limited the maximum extent of the viewshed to 300 m because this is the maximum distance from which lions initiate stalking hunts [52].”
From Effects of Vegetation Structure on the Location of Lion Kill Sites in African Thicket (2016) · cites this paper as [52]
In the citing paper
“Impala were more often encountered by lions in dense bush [52], where darkness was considered less important because lions could rely on the cover provided by the vegetation [23].”
From Effects of Vegetation Structure on the Location of Lion Kill Sites in African Thicket (2016) · cites this paper as [52]
In the citing paper
“Whereas buffalo are a preferred prey species in several savanna ecosystems [21,57,58], they constituted less than 5% of kills found during our study, and less than 1% of male kills (Table 5), despite male lions specifically targeting buffalo elsewhere [52].”
From Effects of Vegetation Structure on the Location of Lion Kill Sites in African Thicket (2016) · cites this paper as [52]
Citations
Cites
Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis.
Johnson, A., & Wichern, D. W. (1988) · Biometrics · doi:10.2307/2531616 · Cited by 11,374
Collett, D. (1991) · Chapman & Hall/CRC eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-4475-7 · Cited by 1,960
Applied Multivariate Statistical Analysis
Ziegel, E. R., Johnson, R. A., & Wichern, D. W. (1999) · Technometrics · doi:10.2307/1271011 · Cited by 1,564
The Serengeti Lion: A Study of Predator-Prey Relations
Schaller, G. B. (1972) · Cited by 1,220
The Ecology of Carnivore Social Behaviour
Macdonald, D. W. (1983) · Nature · doi:10.1038/301379a0 · Cited by 1,192
The Spotted Hyena. A Study of Predation and Social Behavior
Southern, H. N., & Kruuk, H. (1973) · Journal of Animal Ecology · doi:10.2307/3145 · Cited by 995
Ecological Aspects of Social Evolution
(1987) · Princeton University Press eBooks · doi:10.1515/9781400858149 · Cited by 917
(1978) · Harvard University Press eBooks · doi:10.4159/harvard.9780674431263 · Cited by 707
Why Lions Form Groups: Food is Not Enough
Packer, C., Scheel, D., & Pusey, A. E. (1990) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/285079 · Cited by 651
Serengeti II: Dynamics, management, and conservation of an ecosystem
Leader‐Williams, N. (1996) · Trends in Ecology & Evolution · doi:10.1016/0169-5347(96)81103-7 · Cited by 503
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 3
- Gasaway, 1989, Demography of spotted hyaenas in an arid savanna, Etosha National Park, Namibia, Madoqua, 16, 121
- Mills, 1985, Hyaena survey of Kruger National Park: August–October 1984, I.U.C.N.S.S.C. Hyaena Specialist Group Newsletter, 2, 15
- Stander, 1993, Hunting success of lions ina semi-arid environment, Symposia of the Zoological Society of London, 65, 127
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Prey preferences of the lion (Panthera leo)
Hayward, M. W., & Kerley, G. I. H. (2005) · Journal of Zoology · doi:10.1017/s0952836905007508 · Cited by 449
Predator–prey size relationships in an African large-mammal food web
Owen‐Smith, N., & Mills, M. G. L. (2008) · Journal of Animal Ecology · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2656.2007.01314.x · Cited by 374
Self-citationSexual Selection, Temperature, and the Lion's Mane
West, P. M., & Packer, C. (2002) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1073257 · Cited by 337
Leadership in elephants: the adaptive value of age
McComb, K., Shannon, G., Durant, S. M., Sayialel, K., Slotow, R., Poole, J., & Moss, C. (2011) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.0168 · Cited by 311
Factors affecting the hunting success of male and female lions in the Kruger National Park
Funston, P. J., Mills, M. G. L., & Biggs, H. C. (2001) · Journal of Zoology · doi:10.1017/s0952836901000395 · Cited by 199
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- FUNSTON, P. J., MILLS, M. G. L., BIGGS, H. C., & RICHARDSON, P. R. K.
- Affiliations
- University of Pretoria (ZA)
- South African National Parks (ZA)
- Venue
- Animal Behaviour
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1998-12
- Volume
- 56
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1333-1345
- ISSN
- 0003-3472 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2022828912
- Cited by
- 133
- References
- 48
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 6 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 3 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 1.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Animal Behaviour (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics › Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Keywords
- lion, hunting behavior, prey selection, socioecology, territoriality, buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, vegetation structure, savanna woodland, hunting success, Kruger National Park
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
