In the wild, males seldom live longer than 10 to 14 years, as injuries sustained from continual fighting with rival males greatly reduce their longevity. In captivity they can live more than 20 years. They typically inhabit savanna and grassland although they may take to bush and forest. Lions are unusually social compared to other cats. A pride of lions consists of related females and offspring and a small number of adult males. Groups of female lions typically hunt together, preying mostly on large ungulates. Lions are apex and keystone predators, although they are also expert their food by scavenging as opportunity allows. While lions do not typically hunt humans, some have, sleeping mainly during the day, lions are active primarily at night, although sometimes at twilight.
Highly distinctive, the male lion is easily one of the most widely recognised animal symbols in human culture. Lions spend much of their time resting and are inactive for about 20 hours per day. Although lions can be active at any time, their activity generally peaks after dusk with a period of socialising grooming, and defecating. Intermittent bursts of activity follow through the night hours until dawn, when hunting most often takes place. They spend an average of the hours a day walking and 50 minutes eating.
Lions are the most socially inclined of all wild felids, most of which remain quite solitary in nature. The lion is a predatory carnivore with two types of social organization. Some lions are residents, living in groups of related lionesses, their mates, and offspring. Such a group is called a pride. Females form the stable social unit in a pride and do not tolerate outside females. Membership only changes with the births and deaths of lionesses, although some females do leave and become nomadic. Although extremely large prides, consisting of up to 30 individuals, have been observed, the average pride consists of five or six females, their cubs of both sexes, and one or two males who mate with the adult females. The number of adult males in a coalition is usually two but may increase to as many as four before decreasing again over time. The sole exception to this pattern is the Tsavo lion pride which always has just one adult male. Male cubs are excluded from their maternal pride when the reach maturity at around two to three years of age. The second organizational behaviour is labeled nomads, who range widely and move about sporadically, either singularly or in pairs. Pairs are more frequent among related males who have been excluded from their birth pride. Note that a lion may switch lifestyles; nomads may become resident and vice versa. Males, as a rule, live at least some portion of their lives as nomads, and some are never able to join another pride. A female who becomes an nomad has much greater difficulty joining a new pridem as the females in a pride are related, and they reject most attempts by an unrelated female to join their family group.