Thats them facts

So for the past few days, the television has just been on Natgeo Wild all day in my house, and I've just been mindlessly watching it when I could not have gotten online.  I've collected some significant amount of (mostly hilarious) trivia about felines from this, along with things that I have already known but can't recall right now. Since it is somewhat relevant to the site, I've decided to share some of it here before I forget that too, and I invite you to do the same. 

1. A cheetah is born with a chase drive, but not a predator drive. The cheetah's mother has to teach it what to do once it has caught its prey. I actually saw it happen in the show I was watching when two teen cheetahs caught a baby antelope. I've never seen an animal have a look of such pure confusion as they just kept catching it and then looking at each other.

2. Cheetah females are solitary, but male cheetahs, most often brothers, will live in a group of two or three. You always hear it the other way around, but now if someone tries to tell you that female animals are just naturally more social than males, you can toss that one in.

3. Cheetahs communicate through facial expressions as much as they do through body language, unlike most animals. 

4. Baby cheetahs are born with a faint pattern to appear as honey badgers. Apparently it works, because they have the lowest cub mortality of all the bigger wild cats.

5. Lions are the only truly social cats where males will be friendly to other males. Male lions will actually form alliances....by grooming and nuzzling each other. Just let that one sink in a little.

6. When lions lose battles, they become "embarrassed". The special stress produced from their loss causes their mane to fall out and grow back lighter. This is why the darker the mane, the more attractive the lion is. Another thing to have fun with.

7. A lion's roar is 3-dimensional; it produces a frequency that measures exactly the same whether you are in front of it, to the side of it, behind it, or above it. Like a badass shockwave.

8. Lions can sense a weakness in a roar; a lion miles away can hear the roar of another lion and determine things like its energy level, size, age, the last time it fought and if it won that fight from it. The lady on the show told a story about how a lion roared 12 miles from the lion she was observing and it had litterally ran straight towards the roar just to punch the other lion because it knew it was bluffing.

9. Tigers have nerves on the tip of their teeth more sensitive than our fingers to help them feel around for where they want to bite when they kill, and find veins to drink from as they eat. *pulls out sunglasses* I guess you can say...*unfolds them* they have...*puts them on* the magic touch.  

10. When there are many tigers present at a kill, they naturally form a waiting system for eating; mothers first, then cubs, then females, then males. Because of this, tigers fighting over food is one of the rarest spars to witness with big cats.

11. Tigers have been known to imitate the calls of other animals to attract prey. Mlg pro.

12. Tigers typically live with their mothers for at least 3 years, so it isn't uncommon for a tiger to be pregnant or even with cubs while still having her last children still around. When male tigers want to mate with a female with young, he will impress her her by hunting for her cubs and helping watch and care for them for a week. 

13. There have been documented cases of when tigers and their mothers have "family reunions" and will hunt together and hang out, go to sleep, and then disperse when they wake up.

14. The clouded leopard have the longest canines of all the big cats.

15. Leopards are one of the few cats that will actively hunt out other cats. They are known to hunt cheetahs.

16. Leopards are one of the few non-canine animals that bark, which according to the zoology definition is an animal that expresses anger and both forms of awareness (greeting and alarm) through a short and energetic vocal sound primarily; even cats that growl, chuff, or hiss (all non-energetic sounds) usually have a form of body language as their primary form.

17. Caracals have the highest straight vertical jump of all cats at 16 feet.

Some bonus ones I learned about canines:

18. Sexual and behavioral monogamy uncommon and mammals and does appear more often in canines than almost any other species but wolves are one of the few pack canines that are not strictly monogamous; the female alpha will mate with the most dominant male wolf during heat, which is usually but not exclusively the alpha. They are behaviorally monogamous, however, and the alpha male will knowingly accept the responsibilities of another male's pup. I would like to give a witty comment about that, but I can't think of one.

19. I know almost everything about African Wild Dogs, but I didn't know this; African Wild dog packs tend to perform little "ceremonies" before they go search for food where he hunting leader will bark and touch noses with every member about to participate until everyone is excited and barking. Sorta like a pep talk.