The birth of the pride.
The King of the Beasts symbolises courage, nobility, royalty, strength, stateliness and valour, hence its popularity as a royal heraldic image.
From clay...
Sculptor Alan Dun, who created the Owls of Bath 2018, Lions of Bath 2010 and Pigs of Bath 2008 sculptures, amongst many others, made the original lion maquette (small clay model) in his Limpley Stoke studio near Bath.
To Scaling Up...
The next stage was to scale up to create the large lion sculpture. Various sizes of lion were cut out of MDF and the 1.2m tall and 1.5m long version was chosen. Alan then created a 3D wire frame-work and then sculpted clay around it to create the final lion design.
Breaking the mould...
A fibreglass mould was then made of the full-size clay lion to create the prototype fibreglass lion sculpture, which was then sent off to the GRP factory near Stonehenge. A master mould was made of the prototype, from which the rest of the pride would be born..
The birth of the Pride
The eye-catching lions are currently being made at the fibreglass factory. Each lion takes two days to produce from the 10 part mould. The various body parts are then joined together, sanded down by hand and then primed to create the final smooth canvas for artists to decorate. Roarsome!
Female lions do 85-90% of the hunting, whilst the males patrol the territory and protect the pride.
Lions run at a speed of up to 81km/h.
Numbers of wild lions in Africa have gone down by over 40% in the last three generations, due to loss of living space and conflict with people.
The name for a baby lion is a cub, whelp or lionet.
In the wild, lions live for an average of 12 years and up to 16 years. They live up to 25 years in captivity.
Lions used to be spread across most of Africa, but now are only found in sub-Saharan Africa. Lions have disappeared from 12 sub-Saharan countries in recent decades.
With only around 20,000 left in the wild, lions are now officially classified as ‘vulnerable’.
A female lion needs 5kg of meat a day. A male needs 7kg or more a day.
An adult male’s roar can be heard up to 8km away.
Female lions reach two-thirds of their adult size by the time they are two years old.
Although known as the ‘king of the jungle’, most lions live on open grasslands or savannah. Only one group of wild forest-dwelling lions remains in the Gir Forest in India.
Lions hunt large animals such as zebra and wildebeest.
