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Lions, of course, are big cats, but they're different from tigers, leopards and other big cats because they are very social animals. They live in a group called a "pride," which can have as many as 35 lions in it.
Adult female lions, or lionesses, and cubs make up most of each pride, although two or three adult males live in it, too.

Hunting is how the lions get their food. They eat animals such as zebras, gazelles, hartebeests, gnus and even buffalo. Lionesses do most of the hunting but when it comes to eating, the adult males get their share first.

Lions often hunt together. A couple of lions may chase the prey and herd it toward other lions hiding in the grass. Then the hiding lions leap out and ambush the prey.

When lions eat, they often eat a whole lot of meat all at once. It's possible for a wild lion to eat up to 40 pounds of meat at one sitting. But then it may fast for several days and not eat anything. While it's fasting, the lion may be very, very lazy and just sleep a lot ... until its time to eat again.

If you've ever heard the roar of a lion, you know what a thundering sound it is. It's very possible for a lion's roar to be heard five miles away if the wind conditions are right. Lions often roar just after the sun goes down.

Male lions have manes around their necks. A young male will start to grow a mane when he's about a year old. It's believed that the mane helps protect the neck areas of males when they fight with each other.

Baby lions are called cubs. A lioness will usually have three or four cubs in an area protected by rocks or brush. Many animals are born with their eyes closed, but it's possible for a lion cub to be born with its eyes open. The cubs are very playful and love to wrestle and stalk each other. Lionesses often care for each other's cubs, which is a little bit like baby-sitting.

Although African lions aren't an endangered species, there's a lion subspecies that lives in Asia that is very rare and endangered.

So remember: While you may not be able to call a lion the king of the jungle, there's certainly no reason you can't call him the king of beasts.

ASIAN LION

In the past, you could find hundreds of thousands of these lions in the Middle East and Asia. Now, they number only 180, living on a small wildlife preserve in India. Like the African lion, they've suffered from the destruction of wild lands and from over hunting.

Once, people thought that Asian lions had shorter manes than African lions, but that's not the case. Both can have either long or short manes.

WOLVES

COYOTE: PLACE IN THE FOOD CHAIN

Every animal on earth lives by eating some other living organism -- plant or animal. The sequence of eaten and eater is called a food chain.
The ultimate source of the energy contained in food comes from the sun. It is stored in the grass, and passed on to the grasshoppers. The alligator lizard, which eats the grasshopper, is the next link in the food chain. It, in turn, is eaten by a roadrunner, which then falls victim to the coyote.

The coyote is called an ultimate consumer because nothing hunts it for food.

But this food chain is a closed circle, the final link -- coyote -- being fastened to the first -- the grass. When the coyote dies, its chemicals are broken down by bacteria and returned to the soil, where they nurture more plant growth.

Like many wild dogs, the coyote is usually active at night, when it can hunt safely. You can often see a coyote in the early evening and morning, as it goes to and from its nighttime activities.

Coyotes can run as fast as 40 miles per hour, and at slightly slower speeds, they can run for miles. If a coyote can stay close to its prey, it has a good chance of getting a meal.

DHOLE

In hunting style, the dhole is like the hyena. It hunts in a pack with other dholes, whining, barking and whistling as they go. Whistling usually means that the hunt is unsuccessful, and the pack should reassemble for another try.

It is almost impossible for a single dhole to kill a deer, but five to twelve dholes can manage it together. After the kill, dholes compete for the morsels by eating very fast. A dhole can chew up almost nine pounds of meat in an hour.

Strong, wise, brave -- all these words describe the gray wolf. But another word needs to be added to the list: endangered.

Two hundred years ago, the gray wolf roamed throughout North America.
But many of them were shot by European settlers and pioneers, who were busy cutting down the wolves' forest home for houses and towns. Those wolves that remained found fewer deer, moose and beaver to eat.

Today, the gray wolf continues to feel the impact of an expanding human population. That, and the popular belief that wolves shouldn't live near humans, continues to threaten their presence on our planet.

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