Some obscure lions facts just for fun:

• The darker a male lion’s mane is, the older he is.
• Female lions prefer to mate with males that have the longest and darkest manes.
• The lion is the only member of the cat family that has a tasseled tail. The tassel doesn’t just look good, it also relays messages such as “come this way” or "come hither" and makes for a great fly swatter.
• Unlike most other cats, lions are great swimmers
• A lion’s roar is the loudest of any big cat and can be heard up to 5 miles (8 km) away.
• A lion can roar at the age of 2.
• In the wild, male lions live for 12–16 years. Lionesses live for about 15–18.
• Male lions may mate up to 100 times in two days to ensure that the female is pregnant.
• Among all the big cats, lions nap the most, sleeping up to 22 hours a day.
• Male lions not only let the lioness do about 90% of the pride’s hunting, they also have first dibs on eating the caught prey.
• A lion’s pupil is three times as big as a human’s. But a lion can’t move its eyes side to side very well, so it moves its entire head when it needs to look in a different direction.
• The lion has a special tongue that is rough enough to peel the skin of their prey away from the flesh.
• If a lion licked the back of a human’s hand just a few times, it would peel away much of the skin.
• At the base of each lion’s whisker is a black spot. The patterns these spots make are unique to each lion, similar to a human’s fingerprint. Scientists are able to tell lions apart by looking at these patterns.
• Lions are at risk of extinction by the year 2020 unless drastic measures are taken to save them.