This is the hilarious moment a lioness pushed her annoying cub backwards into a river.
Adorable footage shows the five-month-old cub busily playing arounds his mother, who occasionally swatted him away to keep him at a distance.
Clearly annoyed by the young lion’s games, the matriarch eventually pushed her cub backwards over the ridge as his back was turned.
In a moment of comedic perfection, the youngster managed to swivel round on his backside with a look of disbelief at the betrayal, before keeling over and vanishing into the water below.
The moment was captured perfectly by South African safari guide Kagiso Magano as he took a tour through Madikwe Game Reserve.
Kagiso spotted the family of big cats enjoying some time together on February 23, but one cub was being particularly playful.
Kagiso, from Rockfig Madikwe Lodge, said: ‘I’ve been a guide for 15 years and I have never seen anything like this before, it was just so funny.
‘This cub is the only one in the litter and is extremely playful. Obviously mum found him annoying this day while she was trying to rest and decided to teach him a lesson.
‘They are part of the Mica Jamala Pride, which is based in the south of the reserve.’
Madikwe Game Reserve is home to a small fraction of South Africa’s estimated 3,284 lions – according to the World Population Review in 2024 – over its 750 square-km area in the north of the country.
At five months, the cheeky cub above is still in the early stage of his life, although little lions do begin to participate in kills as young as 11-months-old.
However, they cannot survive until they are around two-years-old and they are into adolescence.
As this young cub is male, he will likely be expelled from his pride at three-years-old and become a nomad, until he is old and strong enough to take over another pride as their leading figure.
Wild lions rarely live for over 10 years, though in captivity they can survive for over 25 years.
Despite their notorious power, lion numbers are actually in decline, and classed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
This article by Matthew Cox was first published by The Daily Mail on 3 May 2024. Lead Image: Kagiso said: ‘I’ve been a guide for 15 years and I have never seen anything like this before, it was just so funny’.
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