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What Made a Pride of Lions Climb a Tree?
Photos: Lions napping up a tree in Central Serengeti, Tanzania. http://t.co/qnzS2daxGe #animals #africa #wildlife pic.twitter.com/rUzVnMosVH
— Yahoo News Photos (@yahoophoto) July 6, 2015
Lions are seriously agile beasts. At top speed, one of these large cats is capable of bounding at an impressive 50 mph, and on top of that, they're able to jump as far as 36 feet. With all this physical prowess though, tree climbing is not usually in their repertoire.
Just last week though, a pride of 15 lions in Central Serengeti, Tanzania climbed 15 feet up into a tree and parked. It wasn’t to scope out prey, get in prime pouncing position or even to lounge as some of their body language might suggest. Photographer Bobby-Jo Clow told Yahoo! News that the felines simply wanted to escape flies. Not a bad option in lieu of bug spray.
This isn't the first we've seen of tree-climbing lions. Just earlier this year, a king of the jungle was snapped in Kenya escaping a herd of buffalo by scaling the trunk of a fortuitously-located tree.