Lions While it’s pretty stressful being a young lion—constant battles for supremacy, insatiable lionesses—in general, mature male lions are loafers. Lionesses and hyenas do most of the actual killing; even the big dark manes are a con. Far from being an indicator of virility, they are the leonine version of the hair that sprouts from the ears and nostrils of middle-aged men. Worse still, a lazy old lion is much more likely to turn man-eater. Slow, weak and always hanging around, we are easy prey: the lion’s equivalent of a night in watching telly with beer and a pizza.

Meet other bone idle beasts in the pages of The QI Book of Animal Ignorance by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson (Faber & Faber). Illustrations by Ted Dewan.

THE IDLER

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NOTES FROM THE COUCH

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