Why lions form groups: food is not enough

This influential analysis asked what selective pressures favour group living in lions, testing whether shared hunting and prey capture alone could explain sociality. Long-term Serengeti and Ngorongoro data showed that foraging benefits were insufficient to account for pride sizes, and that defence of territory, cub protection against infanticidal males, and competition between groups were stronger drivers. The paper reframed lion sociality as a product of intergroup conflict and reproductive defence rather than cooperative hunting, an argument that reshaped carnivore social-evolution theory. It remains a foundational reference for why the lion is the only truly social felid.