It is night in the African bush
where the familiar becomes mysterious
and the unfamiliar is strange indeed.
It is the time and place
where lions come into their own...
and man does not willingly venture.
In this dark realm they reign supreme;
they are the kings;
They are the Lions
of the African Night.
A day in the bushveld of
southern Africa draws to a close
and a pride of 30 lions
that has dozed and slept through
the long, hot day lazes on.
This pride is unusually large two
or three times larger than most,
and for small cubs life in such
a pride can be hard.
When food is scarce, competition
at kills is fierce,
and it's the little cubs
that always suffer.
The males that sired these cubs
have deserted their big family to
form a new pride
elsewhere
with younger lionesses.
Now, all the adults
in this pride are females.
They rest on, waiting
for the day to cool,
for lions are seldom active
when it is hot
and like most prides,
this one hunts mainly at night.
They'll hardly stir until
the sun has set.
As the day winds down, young baboons
cavort in a last burst of play.
The sounds of day merge through the
evening into those of an African night
A hyena sniffs the night
as the clan set out on their hunt.
A toktokkie beetle taps out the signal
that will find him a mate.
And from somewhere close
by comes an answer.
Each hole, cut to
the same pear-shaped pattern,
serves the same remarkable purpose
of magnifying the sound
made by the slender tree cricket
that shapes them.
To advertise for a mate,
the male cricket has developed
a system comparable to a loudspeaker
where a vibrating membrane his wings
is surrounded by a baffle.
The leaf is the cricket's soundboard,
and the sound produced is magnified
in intensity as much as three times.
But simply tapping on the ground
seems to work well enough for
the toktokkie beetles.
In their first hunt of the night
the lions have failed to make a kill.
They have panicked and scattered
a mixed herd of zebra and wildebeest,
which are still vulnerable
as they try to regroup.
The lions have approached their prey
on a broad front
and are now spread out at intervals
through the bush listening.
When hunting at night, lions rely
almost entirely on their acute hearing
They move noiselessly through
the darkness,
stopping frequently
to stand motionless
listening for the slightest sounds
of their prey
Although the lions may not see
any better at night than their prey,
the deep shadows provide more cover
for stalking.
The herd has picked up the scent.
Lions pay no heed to wind direction.
They're not aware that the wind
will carry their scent to the quarry.
And, like most hunts,
this one ends in failure.
With so many mouths to feed, a pride
like this one has to hunts every night.
To survive, each year
they will have to kill about
From crevices, burrows, and holes
animals that have slept through
the day are emerging.
These night apes will feed until
daybreak on tree resin and insects
moving with prodigious leaps
through the trees.
Hippos, having slept and rested in
the river all day, emerge now to feed.
At night they graze on grasses
and sedges along the river's edge.
But sometimes when food is scarce,
they will lumber several miles inland
to find enough to eat.
By dawn each will have consumed
about 80 pounds of forage.
From his burrow entrance a porcupine
tests the safety of the night
before he leads his family out to feed
The tiny pups, only a few weeks old,
will accompany
their parents along regular trails
in their search for the bulbs, roots,
and bark on which they live.
The lions have trapped a warthog
in its burrow.
It's a prize they cannot resist, and
they will dig until they unearth it.
Fierce and frantic,
the warthog in its burrow lunges
with its sharp tusks
as the digging lions.
But with such odds against it,
the outcome is inevitable.
But only a lucky few get a meal
from such small prey.
The others search the ground
for scraps.
A hungry lioness returns
to the demolished burrow
for a last hopeful search
before the pride moves on.
A black roach digs the hole
where she'll place the package of eggs
she carries attached to her abdomen.
The only maternal care she gives
her progeny is now
as she carefully conceals
their position
disguising the site
with pebbles and vegetation.
Parental care is more developed
in this large centipede.
The female carries her young
about with her.
While she devours a grasshopper,
her offspring life packed securely
against her body,
held in place by her many legs.
Other centipedes protect and tend
their young in burrows under stones.
But in addition,
this species can carry hers.
She holds them high above the ground
and walks on her remaining legs.
Centipedes too have predators,
and this tiny snake is a specialist,
feeding on them almost exclusively.
Holding on grimly,
the snake appears unaffected
by the many bites it receives
from the centipede.
The snake's venom takes effect
and the centipede is overcome.
The little snake is able to swallow
centipedes almost twice the diameter
of its own body.
It always seems to start with the head
One of the cubs has an injured leg
and lags behind the behind the pride.
The pride does not wait for her
and she struggles to keep up.
A civet is more at home on the ground,
but a dead tree is a handy refuge
when 30 lions pass by.
Now he can resume his nightly search
for fruits, insects,
and the smaller animals he preys on.
When the cub catches up
with the others,
she must endure the rough bullying
that young lions inflict on one another
especially on those with any disability
There is usually a little comfort
to be had from one of the adults.
Besides, cubs are remarkably resilient
the have to be
and this one will soon recover
to torment in turn some other poor cub
Unless driven by hunger,
the hunt proceeds at a leisurely pace.
At intervals through the night
the pride will stop to rest
and sometimes even to sleep soundly
for a few hours.
Supreme masters of relaxed living,
lions are seldom on their feet
for more than four or five hours 24.
These are the tiny tracks made
by the larvae of ant lions.
It is only at night that these small
insects wander about,
moving backwards, in search of places
to dig their traps.
The head of the ant-lion larva
is dominated
by large hollow jaws through
which it sucks the juices of its prey.
In a patch of fine, soft sand
the ant lion digs in
and begins to excavate the unique trap
which it will catch its
prey usually ants.
But it could well be any small insect.
Turning in ever decreasing circles,
the ant lion uses its head
and jaws as a shovel to throw the sand
and small pebbles out
of the steep-sided pit that it digs.
The trap is ready.
The ant lion buries itself
in the bottom
with only its jaws exposed and waits.
The ant struggles free
from the ant lion's jaws.
But the ant lion has another strategy
that makes escape almost impossible.
It throws up a steady shower
of sand that dislodges
the ant from the steep
sides of the trap
and brings it once again within reach
of the great jaws.
Now, held securely, the ant is dragged
below the sand to be devoured.
Roars in the night can mean danger
for the pride.
These come from a group of males that
have been trying to take over the pride
and its territory for some months.
But the intruders are shunned
by the pride,
for males tend to kill cubs
they have not sired,
and they always appropriate
and prey killed within their hearing.
So the pride departs
in another direction
and won't relax or resume the hunt
until out of range of the big males.
Dawn finds them safe and asleep,
several miles from the troubles
of the night.
Most nights the pride will walk
about five miles,
but when foiled in their hunt
or to avoid other lions,
they may cover twice that distance.
The unpredictable wrath of this bull
elephant takes the lions by surprise.
There is no point contesting the matter
and the pride moves on to find
a more hospitable place.
A male ostrich sits tight on his nest
despite the steady approach
of a herd of buffalo.
If he deserts now, the buffalo might
well trample and scatter the eggs.
But the approach of a herd of lions
is too much for the buffalo...
and the ostrich also
abandons his clutch.
These eggs are a novelty for the lions
In the excitement of the first rush
on the net,
one or two eggs were smashed
and the contents fought over.
But now the lions are puzzled
and unable to open the others.
There's more fun for a cub
in the futile stalk
and chase of the female ostrich
who had just returned
to the awful scene at her nest.
The remaining eggs are lion-proof
and the pride wanders away
to seek shade
where they will sleep through
the rest of the day.
By late afternoon it is overcast
and cool enough for the lions to stir,
and the younger ones have found
a tree to play on.
But tree climbing is not something
they're very good at.
Lions have an edge when stalking prey
distracted by the chaos of a storm.
This time they have killed
a young zebra.
But even the lions are unnerved
by the fierceness of this storm.
The rain unearths a rainfrog.
Most of the year they are inactive
and remain buried underground.
They emerge only
when the earth is soaked.
The storm has damaged
the tunnels of termites,
exposing the workers and
making them easy prey
for the quick tongue of the rainfrog.
During the rainy season temporary ponds
are formed throughout the bushveld.
About 20 different kinds of frogs
will breed at night in this pond.
Not only frogs are attracted
to the pond.
This marbled tree snake
waits for a meal to come within range.
Most of the frogs will deposit
their eggs in the water,
but there are exceptions.
These golden leaf-folding frogs
are placing a row of eggs along
a blade of grass.
With their hind legs they fold
the blade to form a cylinder
in which the eggs will develop.
By far the most numerous predators
at this pond are the spiders.
They wait motionless
at the water's edge.
When the frog has been subdued,
the spider carries it out of
the water to be consumed.
In a tree over the pond a pair of
foam frogs are making their nest.
With their hind legs
they whip up the foam
in which their young will spend
the first five days of their lives.
The female provides the mucus together
with her eggs,
while the male on her back adds
his sperm to the mix.
Soon the foam hardens on the outside
to a meringue-like crust.
From other nests made
five nights previously
tiny tadpoles are slipping out
and dropping into the pond below
where they'll complete
their development.
It is common for more than one pair
of frogs to make a nest together,
but this group is extraordinary.
About 40 frogs are contributing
to this nest
which, when completed,
will contain about 3,000 eggs.
The pride has come upon a
foraging porcupine,
which the adults have left to
the inexperienced younger lions.
The porcupine has been wounded,
but not badly,
and there is much fight still left in
it as the cubs are finding out.
To succeed they will have to insert
a paw under the porcupine
and bowl it over to expose its
unprotected belly.
But they're not finding this easy
and frequently get stuck with quills.
The encounter eventually
becomes a lesson in restraint.
With more time the cubs may
have succeeded,
but the adults have moved on
and the cubs leave to catch up.
A scorpion clears the sand
from its burrow
before settling in the entrance
to ambush passing prey.
Millipedes are often eaten
by scorpions,
but this millipede has
an escape technique
that makes it almost uncatchable
by any scorpion.
When molested, it flips onto its back
and, snakelike, slithers out of range.
A charge on a wildebeest herd
is imminent
and the younger lions listen
for the outcome.
For the small cubs this is the ultimate
test of their ability to survive.
Only by displaying a fierce
will to take its share
can a cub get enough to eat.
And it is now, when the abdomen
of the wildebeest is torn open
and the choicest portions
become available,
that the competition is keenest.
By the end of such a meal
most of the pride will have
at least some small injury.
But they scarcely seem to
notice their wounds, which soon heal.
Eventually the carcass is dismembered
and the adults and larger cubs have
taken their spoils
into the surrounding bushes
to gnaw on in peace.
The younger cubs now have easier
access to the remains of the carcass,
which they attack with a will.
And even the lame cub has managed
to get a share.
Hyenas and jackals that would snatch
a meal from smaller prides
find this group too formidable.
They will keep their distance
until it's all over.
The lions that have finished eating
groom one another
licking away the blood from each other
and probably renewing bonds
that were battered during
the frenzy of eating.
For it is only at kills that harmony
within the pride breaks down.
There is no hierarchy in a lion pride
all are equal,
and the members compete only at kills.
In harmony again and replete
for a little while,
the pride moves on to find a
shady place to spend the day.
By nightfall this large family
will be hungry.
Impelled once more on their
everlasting search for food,
They will resume again their journey
through the African night.