A few years ago, I had the joy of travelling to Africa and the opportunity to see all the exotic “zoo” animals in their native habitats. Both the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros impressed me. The two species can live in proximity to each other because they eat different foods. The parks where we saw the various rhinos were all patrolled by armed agents because poaching of rhinos for their horns is a major problem.

There were a lot of zebras, and that was fun, if only because that is one of Cindy’s favorite animals.

Me, I fell in love with the giraffes. What an amazing animal. They have the longest legs of any animal. They have the longest necks of any animal. They have the longest tails of any animal, and they have one other body part that is the longest of any animal… don’t get naughty, it is their tongue. Giraffes feed mainly on acacia trees. I wrote a few years ago that when a giraffe starts to eat the leaves, the acacia tree responds by releasing ethylene gas. Other acacia trees within 50 meters of the tree that the giraffe is feeding on detect the ethylene. The trees respond to the ethylene by producing tannins and pumping them into the leaves.

The tannins make the leaves taste bad, thus discouraging the giraffe from eating them. The ethylene is carried in the wind, so the giraffes, in response, have learned to get around this plant defense mechanism by grazing into the wind.

Giraffes are formidable creatures, and a fully- grown, healthy giraffe may have only one enemy: lions. Lions are without a doubt the apex land predator in the world. They aren’t the largest or strongest.

Tigers and jaguars are bigger and stronger; however, tigers and jaguars are usually solitary hunters, while lions form social groups called “prides” and as such are much more effective at hunting.

Lions are sexually dimorphic. What that means is you can visually tell the difference between a male and a female. The males are larger and they have a distinct mane. The females do most of the hunting however, because the male is either resting or fighting with other males.

A pride usually consists of a number of related females, their cubs and the father of the cubs who is not related to the females. His life is usually fairly short. There can only be one “king” so other males are constantly challenging the “king” for his position.

These challenges are vicious and usually the “king”, even if he wins, does suffer injuries. These injuries accumulate and sooner than later he is deposed and the new “king” promptly kills all the cubs of the pride so that the females will come into estrus and he then mates with them.

We saw only one male lion. He was magnificent. We sat there in our open-air vehicle about 20 yards away for about an hour. The lion didn’t do anything. Among our group was a brother and sister from Florida. We soon learned that they were wealthy, spoiled, and the boy was quite naïve. One of the highlights of the trip was when the 30-year old young man, bored from watching a sleeping lion, asked if lions ever “do” anything. Our guide jokingly said, “No, that’s how they got their name; they are always just “lion” around.”

The now excited young man turned to his sister and said, “Did you hear that? They are called lions because they’re just lion around all day!”

It took a while for the rest of us to stop laughing.