subject: Lion Stuffed Animal and The Lion's Mane [print this page] Lion Stuffed Animal and The Lion's Mane Lion Stuffed Animal and The Lion's Mane
Like the real thing, the lion stuffed animal is a very regal looking plush toy. Male lion stuffed animals are particularly stunning given their head is surrounded with a thick, plush mane. While there's nothing wrong with female [lion] plush, there's just something about the males which sets them apart.
According to a number of scientists who studied some 300 lions in Tanzania's Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park, the lions mane is a whole lot more than just a bunch of fur framing a face; it's a representation of how vital a lion is, what their fighting skills are like, what social status they are, and a statement about the climate in which the lion lives.
Female lions don't have the long fur that surrounds the males face and neck and only males can grow a mane. For a long time, it was believed that the way in which a mane was shaped on the male lion was a statement about its sexual selection; males with more impressive manes were able to win over more mates and ultimately left more offspring. It was also believed that the mane created an illusion of size on the lion, making it seem like he was much bigger and fiercer than he actually was as compared to a lion with no mane at all. The lions mane has also been explained as providing the male with protection around its neck, making it difficult in a fight for another lion to grab it there.
The University of Minnesota's Peyton West and Craig Packer published a paper in 2002 which explored many of the factors that are direct influences to the lions mane. From the information they gathered, it was revealed that the mane actually contains an abundance of details about the lions nutrition, its ability to fight, its age and health, its testosterone levels, and the climate where it lives. Both Peyton and Packer also revealed that there are two characteristics of manes that in turn give different types of information. For example: lions with darker manes compared to those that are lighter, had better nutrition, higher survival rates of their off-spring, higher testosterone levels, and their reproductive life-span was longer. The length of the mane was the second characteristic; lions with longer manes were more successful when fighting than lions with shorter manes. Climate also played a factor in length and color; in warmer habitats, lions living there had lighter, shorter manes compared to lions living in areas that were cooler. In addition, as the temperature changes through the year, an individual lion's mane can also change in color when it's cooler it can be much darker than when the temperature is hotter.
The lion's mane is what makes the lion stuffed animal stand out from other plush toys. When searching for the perfect lion stuffed animal, the look and feel of it its mane should be an important factor in deciding which one is taken home. Like lions in the wild, not all manes on the lion stuffed animal look the same.
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Copyright Shelley Vassall, 2010. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
