#cat event

[the-curious-cat24]

I enjoy playing with cats! They are so cute! Rosaria is smiling and I think she is a cat lady 🥰

Mona you are right! I become a hard worker and a slave for mora and primos! Ehheheeehhe

Wait! Why is my cat look different here?

Hello Oz! How are you?! It's good to see you here ☺️

[tetsunabouquet]

Before I am going to work on my requests and writing, I really wanted to finish the Hanamiya watercolor that I promised to make due to my Cat Event, an event that started in April and its almost July...

I realized I was pretty shitty in this regard, so I finished it!

I think I already mentioned this in comments about a cat related post, but cats are great at hunting snakes. It's part of why they were revered in Ancient Egypt.

So when the results were in, and I saw most people voted for a cat version of Hanamiya with snake coming in 2nd, I knew I was going to turn this into a snake-hunt spectacle.

Because someone already made a nice artwork of a cat version of Hanamiya in realistic colors, I decided to use the teal color of the Kirisaki Daiichi team as primary color for the snake and to use bits of teal alongside brown, greys and blacks for Hanamiya's fur to make the two animals into one cohesive piece.

Even when re-attempting the whiskers with acrylic paint, they still look pretty bad. I still need a bit of experience in painting whiskers LMAO

[cc-rooki3]

HSHSHSBBSBS I WAS DOING THE SILLY CAT EVENT, AND WHEN ALBEDO CAME ON SCREEN I THOUGHT “NOOO, AinT no waY, iS hE experimenting ON SIR POUNCELOT?? DD:”

But nah- we cool .^.

[prophets-of-the-barrens]

Nya M!A hacking Proto so he acts like a cat

[Wait what? Don't-]

[Executing external programming...]

[Restarting...]

[I... suddenly feel the urge to climb up a tree and stay there.]

[Can't make it stop.]

[I... will be right back. Everything is. Fine. I believe.]

[Splendid even. I'm being sarcastic.]

---

///ooc: Prototype will act like a cat for the next 3 to 5 asks.

[nots-27]

BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP

BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP BOOP

[thewisestdino]

Just hit the most devious lick

[forgwater]

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Folk were really into the post I made about Tandie, the zoo lion with a (then) undergrown mane due a period of time on testosterone blockers. He's having quite the glow up this summer.

But!

Did you know that manes are hormone dependent in both sexes of lion?

Let's talk about maned lionesses!

To recap the previous post quickly: the existence of a mane, and it's color, appear to be pretty heavily androgen-dependent. Neutered males or males put on testosterone blockers, like Tandie was, will drop their manes - but like Tandie, if taken off the meds, it will generally grow it back. Darker manes are indicative of higher testosterone levels, and long/lush manes are generally a good signal of a male's fitness and mate quality. Females seem to show a preference for males with longer, darker manes and other males will preferentially avoid scuffles with them. (Yes, as many comments have pointed out, that means Scar was actually a hunk. Do with that as you will.)

The fascinating thing about androgens being linked to manes in lions is that it goes both ways - females with higher levels will also grow manes!

Mane growth in females lions is most commonly seen with elderly animals who have stopped cycling and are basically in lion menopause. And they have to get pretty old for it to happen - captive lions generally only live into their late teens and early second decade, and most of the maned ladies I know about started growing manes around like, seventeen.

Not all old female lions grow manes, but some of the career cat people I've talked to said it happened to about a quarter of the females they've worked with over the years. Which... is an interesting contrast to the news articles about Zuri, who we'll meet in a bit, that breathlessly reported in 2022 that her mane growth "left scientists baffled."

Old lady lion manes are just... precious. They grow in first at the chest and then around the sides or on the back of the head, but they don’t normally get the length, density, and connectivity seen in the mane of an adult male. It leaves the lionesses manes kind of awkward, in the way I associate with very young males, and they're absolutely adorable. Prepare yourself for the photo spam.

I have to start with Daisy, because she's the only maned lioness I've had the privilege to meet in person.

I don't know exactly when she started growing her mane, but she was over 20 years old when she passed in 2019 with these luscious locks.

Here's another female at the same facility, named Adeena. On the left is a photo of her from 2021, on the right is from this spring (I think she's mid-sneeze in the photo). She turns 20 in October.

If you've heard about maned lionesses before, it’s probably because of Zuri, at Topeka. She’s the most recent one to get media coverage and she went a little viral.

(Just a side note here, but I have some strong feelings about knowledge loss in the exotic animal management world due to political/philosophical schisms. This is one of those topics where it's clear: Topeka told a reporter that the zoo had “never" heard of this happening before, but it's common enough to be well known as a thing in other sectors of the exotic cat world. There's so much expertise and knowledge being lost due to infighting between accrediting groups, and it drives me up a wall).

Anyway. Zuri had one of the best manes I've seen on an elderly lioness. It grew long and lush and she totally could have done shampoo commercials. I mean, look at this.

Zuri lived with her sister, who didn't grow a mane in her old age. Here's the two of them together, Zuri on the left, Asante on the right.

We don't completely know what's going on with these golden girls to cause them to grow manes. It's theorized to be related to the end of estrus and higher levels of androgenic hormones, although it's not clear if that's just due to lower levels of other hormones during "meownopause" or if there's something else also going on.

There was some speculation with Zuri's mane growth that it was caused by the death of the male she lived with, in some biological need to "take over the role." The zoo dismissed that idea pretty quickly, and it makes sense, although there is one other instance where I've heard of that happening before.

The cat people I've talked to say that older lionesses who grow manes don't tend to act differently - they're not taking over new social roles in their prides or anything. Sometimes they can be less active, or be a little more nervous around males, and want to be left alone more, but it was emphasized to me that those behaviors could also just be associated with the fact that manes tends to develop in elderly lionesses.

The mane growth can happen pretty quickly, as we saw in the photos I've posted of Tandie over the last year. Here's Bridget, from the Oklahoma Zoo. The left photo was taken in March of 2017 and the right in November - look how much hair she gained over six months!

The zoo did some research into what might have cause Bridget's mane growth, and found that she had elevated levels of androstenedione, which is a hormone that can be converted by the body into either testosterone or estrogen, depending. In AFAB people, it's known to have a masculinizing effect. The zoo theorized that this was the cause of her mane growth, and that the elevated levels might have been caused by a benign tumor. Fascinatingly, though, blood draws revealed that her testosterone levels were the same as her mane-less sister, Tia.

Tia is on the left in the photo below, Bridget and the beginnings of her mane are on the right. Bridget was 17 when her mane started growing in.

I don't think there's any formal hypothesis that there might be a genetic component to lionesses growing manes in old age, but it's interesting to note that one of Tia's daughters, Zari, also grew a mane. (And she grew it young! It started around age 13, interestingly, also right after their male died). She's on the left in the photo below.

And to circle back around to where we began: Tandie is related to a number of maned ladies! His father, Xerxes, was Bridget's son; Zari was Xerxes' half-sister.

Here's a few more beautiful maned ladies to leave you with. In order, Ngala, Pepper, Skye, and Dandy Lion.

Next up, and last in this lion mane series, is the story of five younger lionesses in Botswana who not only have manes but also express a range of masculine behaviors.

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A huge thanks to all the folk who shared photos of and stories about their golden girls for this post: M. Townsen, S.W. Simpson, E. Day, S. Cook, M. Stinner, M. Paul, K. Vanaman, D. O'Halloran, R. Simpson, D. Souffrant.

[superbeans89]

[ferncloud]

jay&holly

[tinyfantasminha]

quick doodle before this meme dies

[accursedvoid]

Warrior Cat CrowdStrike has dealt a blow to the Clan of Microsoft today.

[prophets-of-the-barrens]

hey rue, what did you think of proto becoming a cat?

was it strange seeing him so active?

I think it makes for a challenging writing exercise, for sure. It's best if we keep them out of canon, for the sake of continuity.

Anyways, besides that... I guess it was a little amusing, it's uncharacteristic of him to act that way, and seeing him struggle to fight his impulses is interesting.

It makes me think he falls into the same pattern when overthinking. I guess I could remember that being a recurring issue a long time ago?

My memory of the old world isn't always the best, though.

[voidheartkisses]

happy pride month!!

[jazzitos]

(^^♪ #gatinhos 情熱的な ♡ 🐈

[sayruq]