Growing old with prides: Male and female lions socialize differently throughout their lives

But until now, it was not known how individual lion’s social networks change as lions age and what this might mean for their survival. For female lions, "friends" can be valuable allies for territory defence, hunting, and cub rearing - all of which require cooperation. Whereas females' social connection to other females declines linearly with age, being highest in early adulthood. Males' social connection strength to females is highest in mid-life, and lowest in early and late life. The paper ‘Sex-specific social ageing in wild African lions’ has been published in Current Biology.