Jason De Rauville, a guide at the Phinda Game Reserve, captured this extremely rare behavior, stating he was “on an early morning drive” when he and his group “came across some fresh lioness tracks”.
Jason and his group followed the tracks, noting signs that “the lioness had sort of “scent marked” against a tree so this stated that she must have been on heat”.
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When they got close though, they met another guide, who’d found that the lioness appeared to have paired off with another lioness, instead of a male lion.
An Unexpected Encounter
Along with the other guide, Jason and his group settled in to watch the two lionesses, interested and confused by their behavior. Male lions undertake an action called dominance or mock mounting, to establish dominance over each other, but this was different.
Jason said he was “excited” as he’d “never seen or heard of anything like this before”. As they watched, they saw “one lioness mount the other and decided to stay and see if it would happen again”.
Dominance mounting appears to occur almost exclusively in males, and is not considered a sexual activity, due to the lack of penetration and ejaculation. It’s primary role is to establish a social hierarchy, but that doesn’t seem the purpose between these two females.
Homosexuality In The Animal Kingdom
There are many animals in nature that are capable of forming homosexual relationships. When it comes to lions it’s often unclear if these such relationships do occur, or if it is purely a dominant behavior.
Jason did say that there “has not been much research conducted into why lionesses would portray this kind of behavior”, but it was amazing to see something so unprecedented in the wild.
It could have been because both females were in heat and there weren’t any males nearby. Lionesses do seem to form relationships in captivity, but there have been very few sightings of it occurring in the wild, resulting in the lack of knowledge.
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A Truly One Of A Kind Moment
Due to there being so few sightings of this nature, Jason and his tour group stayed to observe it further. They’d stumbled across a moment so rare as to be unheard of, and there was no point in cutting it short.
The two females lay together on the ground, nuzzling against each other in what appeared to be a very affectionate manner, before one mounted the other, just for a short moment.
The group waited to see if it would happen again, and Jason said that the “wait paid off and she mounted again, this time I had my camera ready!”
Affectionate Lionesses
After the mounting one of the lionesses, the slightly smaller of the two, appeared to be encouraging the other to do it again, but the other seemed to want to be more affectionate.
Jason described them as “a honeymoon pair of lions”. After seeing something which very few people had ever seen before, the group “left after the second round of mounting when they began to settle down and rest”.
After seeing something so rare Jason could only speculate as to the cause, but it could be as simple as these two lionesses really enjoying each other’s company.