One night the Tsalala Pride caught and killed a zebra beyond the southern boundary of their territory. In 2011, the similarities between the two lionesses I speak of really began to get bizarre. The original Tailless female with the sub-adults, photographed during the arrival of the Majingilane on Londolozi. It is amazing to think how different the lion population would look had this female not gone out on a limb to save these cubs. This pride is now the largest in the Sabi Sands and has even had to split recentlydue to its size. The subsequent pride that she saved was the beginnings of what we all now call the Mhangeni Pride. In almost the same way that her adult life had begun, she was once again raising cubs as a solo female. She gathered the remaining cubs, headed into the north west of the Sabi Sands and subsequently raised them on her own. It most certainly would have been the easier decision to make to abandon the cubs and begin again with the new coalition but she did the opposite. The Tailless lioness could have done the same. What transpired was that two of the adult lionesses in the Tsalala Pride (Tailless lioness’ daughters) left their natal pride, choosing to move off and mate with the newly-dominant Majingilane coalition. This left the Tsalala Pride in a precarious position. Fathered by the Mapogo males, the youngsters were not Majingilane blood and in the typical spirit of a lion takeover, the Majingilane males killed four of the Tsalala cubs in the space of a few months. At the time the Majingilane coalition arrived on Londolozi, the Tsalala pride numbered 11. Then in 2010, the Tailless lioness would show her resilience and character yet again.

At this point the wound had begun to heal and she could move about and hunt again. The Tailless female after removing her own tail. She had proven the extremity of her strength and resilience. What she gained though was an enormous amount of respect from those who witnessed her fight for her life.

As a result she lost two of her cubs to starvation. For many weeks she could hardly move and was unable to hunt. What progressed over the next few days shocked everyone as this lioness actually chewed away her own tail to curb the infection, a desperate last resort for survival. By the time rangers arrived, a fight had ensued between the lions and hyenas and the older lioness had been very severely mauled. A hyena had managed to bite her tail and remove a large chunk from the base of it. The commotion and noise caused by the pride feeding drew the attention of a clan of hyenas who came into the area to steal the kill. She had killed a zebra and all seven lions were feeding on the carcass. Jump forward a few years to 2005 and by this point, the ‘Tailless’ lioness (who still had her tail at the time) was with her now-bigger pride (made up of her original two cubs and a younger litter of four). Ximpalapala Koppies: The rocky outcrop that has housed many generations of the Tsalala Pride’s cubs

Beautiful lioness