Goodbye Animals by Liz Ash : Goodbye Lion
We all carry stories. The experiences that we have in our lives make us who we are. Goodbye Animals is a hand illustrated series of 6 nearly extinct or endangered animals. What are the experiences of these animals? If they could tell their stories what would they say? Would we even listen? I attempt to tell their stories in a visual narrative using ink and a collage format. The longer that you look at each animal, the more information you will uncover.
Meet Goodbye Lion. Goodbye Lion carries the story of the beloved king of the jungle. The lion population in Africa has been reduced by half since the early 1950s.
Did you know:
The lion is the second-largest living cat next to the tiger.
Lions are very social creatures.
Females are the hunters, while males are primarily concerned with maintaining their territory.
In ancient historic times, Lions range was in most of Africa, including North Africa, and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India. In the late Pleistocene, about 10,000 years ago, the lion was the most widespread large land mammal after humans: Panthera leo spelaea lived in northern and western Europe and Panthera leo atrox lived in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru.
Lions are the only members of the cat family to display obvious sexual dimorphism – that is, males and females look distinctly different. They also have specialised roles that each gender plays in the pride. For instance, the lioness, the hunter, lacks the male's thick mane. The colour of the male's mane varies from blond to black, generally becoming darker as the lion grows older.