Picture of a full-bellied lion cub after feeding

 

Full bellied lion cub. Image: Reddit user u/asilvertintedrose on Reddit. I don't expect that this person is the photographer, however.

This lion cub looks zonked out after feeding to the maximum on raw flesh judging by the blood on his forelegs and on his muzzle and on chin. And of course, we can't forget the belly, which is completely full, but you can't blame a lion cub for eating to the maximum because they are never quite sure when the next meal is going to arrive.

I think that it is a great picture. It is almost too good to be true and looks as though that it might have been set up but then again, the blood looks very real.

The distended belly is enormous I wonder whether he has overdone the feeding. I have never seen a lion cub with such a full belly. I think that he has eaten enough to keep him alive for a week ✔️😊.

It is a convenient moment to talk about feeding. You might know that in general, lions eat enormous amounts of meat (flesh) at a sitting. One male was recorded eating 33 kg of meat during a night.

In a pride of lions, as expected, the strongest male lion will eat first followed by other members of the pride. Lionesses will feed before cubs and cubs get the scraps.

Arguably, by human standards, a lion pride is a misogynistic society because although females conduct most of the hunts the top male lion feeds first followed by the other males. As mentioned, the females feed secondly and then the cubs who have a hierarchy of their own.

Sometimes male lions tolerate showing their food with cubs.

The point being made is that as cubs get the scraps, it is unsurprising that you will see a cub as you see in the photograph on this page, fully sated after overeating because he or she has probably struggled hard to get what was available and therefore they ate the whole lot just in case there'd be a long break before the next meal.

How many litters does a cat have in a year?

The answer depends upon whether we are talking about domestic or wild cats. And I don't think it is possible to produce a one size fits all answer to the question. In fact, you will see a variety of answers to this question on the Internet. My conclusion is that domestic cats have 2-3 litters per year. Wild cats in general have one litter per year. It is hard to find definitive answers with respect to the wild cat species because even the best reference work that I have doesn't provide answers sometimes on a species-by-species basis.

Image by David Mark from Pixabay.

However, the sand cat and the bobcat appear to produce 2 litters per year but this may not happen every year. In fact, a semi-tame bobcat in a zoo produced 2 litters but Mel and Fiona Sunquists, the authors of a great book on the wild cat species, Wild Cats of the World, said that this is probably unusual. This indicates to me that one litter per year is more normal for the American bobcat.

Theoretically domestic cats could have 5 litters per year but practically it is probably as stated above although Dr. Desmond Morris in his book CATWATCHING argues that they have 3 litters per year and if they have 14 kittens within those 3 litters then within 5 years, there could be more than 65,000 kittens!

You will see that there is a difference between the theoretical numbers and practical numbers.  Many kittens die, for example. And there are variables which influence the number of litters per year. For example, when a group of male lions take over a pride and they kill the cubs, the lionesses are brought into heat. They become receptive to mating. This artificially forces them to have a litter. 

But if their offspring become adults then usually they don't have another litter until their existing offspring have reached the age of 18 months. This would imply that they have one litter every 18 months if their cubs are not killed by incoming males in acts of infanticide.