I don’t think there’s a category predisposed to this type of question… so I’ll leave it here under health.


I asked a similar question a few weeks ago ref the positioning of the mammary glands on certain animals, whether they be to the front/upper or rear/lower portion of the specimen, and why.


It’s raised my curiosity that with the basic blueprint of mammalian life starting out as female until such time as the X & Y chromosomes begin to work their magic within the embryo… altering the embryo to follow the instructions and form a male foetus or to see the embryo continue growth into a female foetus.


As in our own species the male child is born with nipples, completely useless for nursing a child but fully formed within the womb before the XY chromosomes got to work… do the male offspring of other animals have nipples too.


It’s easy to see other primates do, but what of cattle, sheep, pig’s cats and dogs. And what about the onset of puberty… when the male child’s Adams apple enlarges, his voice breaks, sounds squeaky and then begins to deepen… does the roar of a male lion have a deeper tone than that of a lioness, and the same for other animals… I’ve never heard a reference when watching a film of the wild when the call of an animal could be determined by its call. Do bulls moo louder than cows, or dogs bark louder than bitches for example?

Quote :

does the roar of a male lion have a deeper tone than that of a lioness

According to this website Wildlife South Africa "A Male lion's roars can be heard on a quiet night over 6 km. Lions often roar after a kill or when members of a pride are trying to locate each other. Lionesses have a soft short roar that they utter when calling their cubs."

Indeed other mammals do have nipples, irrespective of sex. Billys of some of the most productive breeds of dairy goat (Saanen, for example) have sufficiently well-developed udders and teats that they often require milking. Secondary sexual characteristics (such as a deeper voice etc) are common, not only amongst mammals, but in fish and birds too.

Lions communicate with a variety of facial expressions and postures that serve as visual gestures, they also have quite an array of vocalisations. Snarling, hissing, coughing, meowing, woofing and finally the mighty roar of the male which he uses to communicate with his pride or to claim dominance over a territory or kill. A lion's roar is the loudest of any of the big cat.

It is understandable why the lion is/was so often used in cultural depictions.

Does anyone know if any other felines purr besides domestic cats?

nordmann wrote:

normanhurst wrote:

does the roar of a male lion have a deeper tone than that of a lioness

According to this website Wildlife South Africa "A Male lion's roars can be heard on a quiet night over 6 km. Lions often roar after a kill or when members of a pride are trying to locate each other. Lionesses have a soft short roar that they utter when calling their cubs."

Some people in ancient times believed that the male lion played a crucial role following the birth of lion cubs. For example in his Etymologiae Isidore of Seville writes in Book XII de Animalibus, Chapter II de Bestiis that:

'Cum genuerint catulum, tribus diebus et tribus noctibus catulus dormire fertur; tunc deinde patris fremitu vel rugitu veluti tremefactus cubilis locus suscitare dicitur catulum dormientem.'

'When they give birth to a cub, it will sleep fitfully for three days and three nights. Then in that place the father will roar as if to shake the den and waken, it is said, the cub from its sleep.'

P.S. I'm not sure whether big cats purr or not Gran but bears have certainly been recorded making a low rumbling noise when they are relaxed and contented.

The panthera family of great cats, Lion, Tiger, Jaguar and Leopard are all roaring cats and cannot purr. It is either one or the other apparently, those that purr cannot roar and vise versa.

Lions are just over grown pussy cats really, even if they can't purr  

Cheetahs can though, I've always hankered after one even if they're a bit big to curl up in one's lap.

I heard just the other day, though I don't know if it's verifiable, that domestic cats only meow when there are people around to influence.  It is not a natural part of their 'vocabulary', and only used to get what they want.  Away from people, it has no use and therefore isn't used.  I seem to feel I have heard kittens mewing for attention from their mothers, though.

I've read that too Caro and I don't agree with it, nor do I agree with the myth that domestic cats are solitary animals.  I've always kept more than one cat at a time and they are actually quite social and vocal with eachother, mothers call kittens and kittens constantly call mothers and their siblings. Males call females and vise versa, mine meow at birds too. They also vocalise when they greet eachother. It is sort of a throaty half purr, half grunting sound before touching noses, they are really very similar to lion in their social hierachy, bonding and need of company.

Tigers chuff instead of purring as a way of greeting etc




The Snow Leopard chuff as well, even though they can't roar like a tiger

Didn't we discus cats' vocalisations in another thread recently? It seems they can bark too.




Feral and farm cats do tend to live in groups but isn't it usually related  females and sub adult males while the mature toms tend to wander?

Cats have their own territory which is controlled by a dominant male and he has first dibs at breeding with the females within that territory. They seem to be uncomfortable wandering much past their borders and prefer to stay within familiar territory. Outside they'll get a hiding from other dominant males also.

The battle scarred dominant male around our little neighbourhood patrols past our house twice everyday (morning and evening), reminds my 3 boys who is boss and then leaves copious sprayings around just to make sure we all get the message. He is a horrible bully really and my cats are absolutely submissive to him. Well more terrified actually, even though I'm fairly sure he fathered at least two of them. He was quite tolerant when they were young but since they reached sexual maturity all gloves are off.

Islanddawn wrote:

Tigers chuff instead of purring as a way of greeting

There used to be 2 family films which formed a staple of the winter broadcasting schedules in the 1970s and 80s. One was The Call of the Wild (1972) starring Charlton Heston and based on Jack London’s seminal anthropomorphic novel from 1903 about sled dogs in the Yukon. The other was When the North Wind Blows (1974) starring Henry Brandon and about Siberian tigers. Both have seemingly fallen out of fashion over the last 30 years. The Call of the Wild is presumably out of favour because of its seemingly atavistic and primitivist message in which a domesticated dog is forced to become savage. London’s interest was actually more to do with animal welfare and he wrote a reverse sequel 3 years later called White Fang in which a wild dog becomes domesticated.

When the North Wind Blows is presumably out of favour because the film might not pass the ‘no animals were harmed’ certification which coincidentally first began to be used in 1972. By all accounts the tigers used in the film were Las Vegas-style, de-clawed show tigers. The film also features scenes in which the tigers ‘attack’ horses which (simulated or not) must still have been traumatic for the animals concerned.        

At the beginning of When the North Wind Blows the viewer is shown of a map of the North Pacific and the narrator mentions a popular myth which suggests that in wintertime Siberian tigers would be able to cross the frozen Bering Strait to Alaska and from thence travel south to California and the rest of the Americas. The film opens with a scene of people viewing Siberian tigers in a cage in a zoo in San Francisco at the turn of the 20th Century and a man there mentions to a young woman that he too comes from Siberia. He then proceeds to tell his story.

It’s an interesting hypothesis but the reality is that Siberian tigers do not venture anywhere near as far north as the Bering Strait but are to be found much further south in the vicinity of the Amur River and the Manchurian and Korean borders. Secondly, even if they were somehow to get up to the Bering Strait, the conditions there are such that although the waters can freeze over in winter, the fierce currents make the ice prone to cracking and channelling. In other words it is generally impassable north/south to all but the strongest of icebreaking ships while simultaneously remaining impassable east/west for land mammals.