I read this rather shocking article earlier about how a zoo Lioness grew a mane.
It's kind of amazing how nature works, the fact that Nala can become Simba is indeed crazy.
I went to do a bit of research and apparently it's not the first time that such change of gender traits are happening.
In this earlier article, five Botswana lionesses in the year 2014 grew a mane and began acting like males.
They were studied by a Geoffrey D. Gilfillan of the University of Sussex in Falmer, UK. After deciding to study a particular lioness, SaF05 for 2 years the following observations were made.
- While SaF05 is mostly female in her behaviour – staying with the pride, mating males – she also has some male behaviours, such as increased scent-marking and roaring, as well as mounting other females
Now female lions do roar and scent mark you see, but SaF05 was doing hers more frequently which is a male trait.
It was however noted that after frequent copulation, SaF05 didn't become pregnant.
Apparently once you've gone to the male side naturally, it's over 😔.
There are more instances of lionesses acting and looking more like a male, like the Lioness Bridget of the Oklahoma Zoo.
There are a lot of predictions of what may be the cause of this phenomenon, no solid reason at the moment, bit one thing that has been noted as a factor is the increase in testosterone, which tips their gender a bit to the male side.