The Hoanib Pride

Xpl-47 "Bianca"

An adult lioness ("Bianca" - Xpl47) was darted between the Hoanib and Hunkap Rivers in May 2008 and fitted with a GPS collar. She belongs to a group of five lionesses and had three small cubs at the time of the darting.

Synchronised movements. Below are four synchronised movement animations of "Bianca" (light blue icon) in relation to the movements of the male, Xpl-73 (red icon) and the Floodplain lioness (Xpl-10, dark blue icon) for a two-month period, between 22 Nov 2010 and 21 Jan 2011. Each animation spans over 15 days.

22 Nov 2010 - 6 Dec 2010

7 - 21 Dec 2010

22 Dec 2010 - 5 Jan 2011

6 - 21 Jan 2011

Hoanib lionesses with cubs. The Hoanib lionesses (Xpl-47 "Bianca" & Xpl-59) recently gave birth to her second litter after mating with the Hunkap male ("Rosh", Xpl-73) in Sep 2010. The data received from the satellite GPS collar fitted to "Bianca" (Xpl-47) are providing valuable information on the movement patterns of lionesses with small cubs. An animation of the movements of Xpl-47 for the past 15 days is presented below (left), followed by an analysis of her movement patterns in relation to the cubs for the past 32 days (below, right).

Movement patterns of Xpl-47 in relation to her cubs
During a period of 32 days Xpl-47 visited her cubs every 4.1 days (n = 8), spending on average 2 days with them and 2.1 days away from them. In total, she was with the cubs for 48%, and away from them for 52%, of the time. When leaving the cubs, Xpl-47 was presumably hunting for food and returned to suckle and attend to the cubs. Over the 32-day period she moved 220.8 km, but 91% of that distance was travelled when away from her cubs. During the periods that Xpl-47 were with her cubs she moved an average of 1.9 km/day, but travelled significantly further when away from them and hunting for food (mean = 13.7 km/day).

Statistics	With Cubs	Away
No. of events	8	8
Average durations (days)	2.0	2.1
Range (days)	0.3 - 2.9	0.5 - 4.5
Total duration (days)	15.7	16.7
Average distance moved (km)	2.6	25.1
Range (km)	0.3 - 5.5	8.7 - 42.9
Total distance moved (km)	20.5	200.3

New movement animations
The movement patterns of the adult lioness (Bianca - Xpl-47) are presented below using a Flash animation. Click on the PLAY button to start the animation. The timeline is constant at 7.5 seconds per day (24 hrs). Black and yellow bars indicate night and daytime, respectively, on the timeline. When the red dot moves quickly across the screen, it accurately represents the speed at which the llion moves.

September 2009 - first 6-day highlight

Earlier animations of Xpl-47

2009

JUL

AUG

SEP

OCT

NOV

DEC

2008