Animals

Typically a mature male stands 4 feet at the shoulder and is 8 .5 feet long, plus tail. He'll average 450 pounds. Females are considerable smaller, weighing less than 300 pounds. Adult lions usually have a plain unspotted coat, light brown to dark ochre in color. Cubs are marked with spots which sometimes persist on the legs and belly until they are fully grown. Male lions have a brown mane, which tends to grow darker and fuller as the animal ages. The tail has a black tuft at the end. "White" lions occasionally occur in the Transvaal region of southern Africa, but these are not true albinos.
Thousands of years ago, lions were common throughout southern Europe, southern Asia, eastern and central India and over the whole of the African continent. Today, with the exception of some 300 highly protected animals in the Gir National Park of India, the only naturally-occuring lions are found in Africa. (But even in Africa lions have been wiped out in the north; the last Numidian male was shot as a trophy in the 1930s.) Lions do not live in heavy forests and jungles and they do not inhabit desert areas due to a scarcity of game.