THE SERENGETI LIONS BY NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

More than 3,000 lions call the Serengeti home. You're sure to see them lounging on a "kopje", rocky outcrops that provide excellent views over the savannah.

With several thousand resident lions, the Serengeti National Park is an excellent destination for those wanting to see the big cats in action. The wide open plains in southern and central Serengeti also provide a perfect backdrop for seeing a lion kill in action. When the wildebeest and zebra migration is in full swing here, you have a very good chance of seeing a hunt.

a dark-maned male lion defending his interests, confronts the peril of lion-on-lion violence on a daily (and nightly) basis.

The Vumbi females -- their pride name is Swahili for "dust" -- kill a warthog they've dragged from its burrow. Such small meals help bridge the lean, hungry, dry season, when cubs may otherwise starve. 

Hildur, C-Boy's partner, frequently makes a long run to visit the Simba East pride. A coalition that controls two prides must maintain vigilance over both.

The Vumbis rest on a kopje, or rocky outcrop, near a favorite water hole. Lions use kopjes as havens and outlooks on the plains. When the rains bring green grass, wildebeests arrive in vast herds. 

Dry season is hard on everyone. Vumbi females, stressed and fiercely protective of their young, get cross with C-Boy, though he's one of the resident fathers. 

Cubs of the Simba East pride: too young to kill but old enough to crave meat. Adult females, and sometimes males, do the hunting. Zebras and wildebeests rank high as chosen prey in the rainy season. 

C-Boy mates with a Kibumbu pride female. After fathering cubs, a resident male can be displaced by other males. His young offspring will then be killed by the new males or left to die. 

C-Boy and a Vumbi female relax between matings. During estrus a female may be monopolized for days by a single male consort. Dark manes correlate with robustness, and dark-maned studs like C-Boy are preferred.

Older cubs like these Vumbi youngsters are raised together as a creche, or nursery group. Pride females, united in the cause of rearing a generation, nurse and groom their own and others' offspring. 

A male often asserts his prerogatives. C-Boy feasts on a zebra while the Vumbi females and cubs wait nearby, warned off by his low growls. Their turn will come.