No, Those Aren't Male Lions Mating. One Is Likely a Female.
Viral pictures of African lions mating likely show a male and a maned lioness, which are common in northern Botswana.
Pictures of two "male" lions mating in the wild have made a sensation online, but the truth may be even more intriguing.
The lion on the bottom is more than likely a female African lion with a mane, a type of animal regularly seen in northern Botswana, where Nicole Cambré recently photographed the lions on safari.
One of the photos shows the two animals rubbing their heads against each other, which is not unusual behavior for males as part of a dominance display, notes Kathleen Alexander, an African lion expert and professor at Virgina Polytechnic Institute in Blacksburg.
As for the mating, "I’ve never seen male-to-male interaction like that, and I’ve been working [in Botswana] for 20 years," she says. "I would
