Did you know that you can determine the age of a lion by its nose? Yes it is absolutely true! Apart from the fact that older lions are larger and more stocky and males have fully developed manes, a lion’s age can also be determined by its nose – after about 3 years of age, the fleshy part of the nose begins to freckle or become liver spotted. An older lion has increasingly more pigmentation until the nose is entirely black, by about 8 years. After 6 years of age a lion’s nose is more than 50% black see for example the full grown male in the photo (and yes that is how close you can safely get on a “proper” wildlife safari holiday with a ‘pretty ordinary’ point and shoot camera) Why not see for yourself with a personalised safari designed by the experts, Destinations Africa, who know these (and many other) little known details Did you know that: giraffes have one of nature’s oddest hearts – over a foot long, weighing up to 11 kilos and producer of the highest blood pressure in the world at 240/160! the giraffe neck contains only the same number of vertebrae as a human and has special veins and blood valves to prevents excess blood flow to the brain, when the giraffe lowers its head to drink giraffes generally splay their forelegs to drink – this leaves them particularly vulnerable and for this and other reasons, they don’t tend to drink for long. They can survive without drinking for extended periods because they absorb the majority of their moisture from the leaves on which they feed and on condensation sadly there are only about 80,000 giraffes left in Africa and the species has already gone extinct in at least seven countries.
