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A female lion brings her cubs to drink from a water hole on a ranch in Namibia. Males will protect their own offspring but are notoriously brutal to any cubs not related to them. This can lead to infanticide, which is most common when new male lions take over a pride of females after vanquishing the previously dominant males. The reproductive physiology of lions encourages this rogue behaviour because females quickly become reproductively receptive once their cubs are gone. New males in a pride are impatient to breed, knowing that they too could soon be overthrown. (Photo by Ongava Game Reserve/Johns Hopkins University Press)
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