Female lion who grew a mane aged 18 left scientists baffled

A lioness left scientists scratching their heads after she began growing her own mane.

The lion has long been revered as an animal associated with strength, power and determination. This is often epitomized in the mane of the mammal, most commonly seen on males once they reach a certain age.

The manes are often full and shaggy, covering the back of the head, neck, shoulders and tend to continue onto the throat and chest.

As well as this, manes tend to come in a lot of different colors, ultimately giving the big cat a rather majestic look.

One lioness certainly caused a stir by being different. (YouTube/WIBW 13 News)

We all know that the lioness typically looks quite different from her male counterpart. Female lions don't usually have manes and are instead a pale sandy colour all over.

However, there can be exceptions to the rule and one lioness certainly caused a stir by being different.

When Zuri, a lioness at Kansas' Topeka Zoo and Conservation Center turned 18, she started growing her own mane.

Zuri grew up at the zoo in a pride of three lions. When Avus, the only male in the pride passed away in October 2020, keepers noticed that Zuri started growing a mane in a similar way to an adult male lion.

Experts say that Zuri's mane was unusual and nothing like a typical male lion's mane, being shorter and less full than that of her male counterparts.

“It’s extremely rare,” the zoo's animal curator, Shanna Simpson, told NPR at the time. “We had never even heard about this happening until we saw Zuri.”

But, while rare, the phenomenon has occurred a handful of times at zoos around the world, including a case in South Africa in 2011 and a 2018 case at the Oklahoma City Zoo.

Five cases of lionesses growing manes in the wild were also reported in Botswana in 2016 in the Journal of African Ecology.

Experts were unsure of exactly what caused Zuri's sudden hair growth but doubted it had anything to do with her trying to step into a male pride leader's paw prints.

When Zuri turned 18, she started growing her own mane. (YouTube/WIBW 13 News)

Kris Everatt, a wild cat conservation scientist at conservation organization Panthera, told Live Science: "I don’t think there's really any kind of evolutionary [reason for this], either lack of males or too much competition with other females or anything like that... I think it’s just a random event."

One potential explanation for it all boiled down to Zuri's age. At 18 years old when the mane started growing, the lioness had exceeded the average lifespan of a lion in the wild - typically 15 or 16 years.

The hair growth may have been caused by hormonal shifts due to extreme age, as tests showed no sign of underlying health issues in the lioness.

Unfortunately, last year, Topeka Zoo announced that Zuri had passed away. The 'beloved lioness' was 19 years old.