Why Don’t All Lions Climb Trees?
The New York Times
Scientists believe that lions everywhere can climb up into branches, but they’re just not very good at it and need help from the right kind of tree.
Visit Queen Elizabeth National Park in Uganda or Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania and you’ll see something unusual: lions that climb trees and spend a good part of their lives resting on branches high above the ground. Elsewhere, lions rarely climb and look rather silly when they try to do so.
“They can get up there pretty well,” said Craig Packer, who oversaw the Serengeti Lion Project for some 35 years. But he added that “they get up there and then they’re like, ‘Whoa, how do I get down?’”
Other big predatory cats climb trees all the time. “Anatomically, leopards are just better built for climbing,” said Luke Hunter, executive director of the big cats program of the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York City. “They’re lighter, and a leopard’s scapula, their shoulder blades, are proportionally bigger, flatter and more concave than a lion’s.
