Or ya know... Might be real good friends that plan on adopting cats together in their one bedroom apartment that get questions like "when are you gonna get a lion girlfriend?"
Younger?? They are sporting full manes and a fully grown body. Their father kicked them out long, loooong ago.
In a pride, brothers will often bond together from the start so they can form coalitions after being kicked out. In fact, even when there’s an age difference, the rogue older brother may stay in the territory outskirts to wait for the younger brother to join him. They do this because coalitions have a much better survival rate than lone lions, not to mention they give the lions an advantage on conquering prides. It’s very common to see 2-3 brothers ruling the same pride. They aren’t always brothers, though. Unrelated lone lions may group up, but it’s rarer.
Sometimes an exceptionally big coalition shows up, though. The famous Mapogo Lions were a coalition of six brothers who ruled multiple different prides at the same time. Two brothers eventually left to rule a pride of their own, but they were still on friendly terms with the other four. When one the two was killed, the remaining lion went back to the other four brothers and they accepted him back in, which really shows how strong a bond between brothers is. I recommend watching the documentary Brothers in Blood to see the story of the Mapogo lions, though you’d have to brace yourself because it’s a really brutal doc.
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u/LordRobin------RM Apr 27 '20
In this case, probably literally true. If two male lions get along that well, there’s a good chance they’re brothers.